For the first time in a year, I’ve dug out my therapeutic parenting book and I had a little cry in the car today. I’m tired, frustrated…possibly a little unreasonable, possibly peri menopausal and I need a little clarity, so advice please!
My little girl is 5, her and her brother are just great kids, and as things go, we are doing great and we seem to tick along like every other family. My girl used to be very controlling - she was scared and traumatised, she didn’t trust me, she would use all sorts of tactics to get a reaction from me (especially) and she had to be in control. We worked with it, things got much better, she trusted me. We tick along ok now, but every six months or so she seems to have a wobble (mostly with me).
Wobbles include focussing on a particular thing that has been covered at school and picking it apart until she is appears terrified. An example of this is they looked at bugs the other week, what followed was about three nights of hysterics about slugs in her school bag (still at school), and I had to tell the teacher about them for her to sort it. Last night it was bears, they have been talking about bears at school (mainly the cuddly kind - I know this because I’d had a chat to the teacher about the slugs). Anyway, a bear was in her room last night and no amount of comforting and reassurance would help. The other week, it was cream in her school bag (they’d had a makeshift beauty salon set up at school). I don’t think this is about the cream, slugs or the bears - which I agree can be scary, I think there is a bit of control creeping in and I think she likes me going up to see her all night (she was left as a baby and generally loves being checked on).
This morning she point blank refused to go into school - she wasn’t upset, she just planted her feet. She eventually went into school when they closed the gate and she had to go through reception, we had to do this the other day when we were a little late (novelty? We are not usually late).
I know this is a long term thing and we need to use strategies to help her generally to feel safe (which we do do) but can anyone suggest any tactics for the immediate issues - like going into school. I’m not sure if I should give her a little control, maybe chose which snack, whether she has dinners or pack up, or if really taking control and being quite firm would help her the most ‘in the moment’.