To feel embarrassed about how I react

[anony24444]

I have anxiety and if I don’t talk about this I will spiral. Please be kind!

just a bit of background: we moved to this area last year. It was awkward trying to settle into an already established school where mums knew each other from the nursery attached to it, so knew each other for many years when my eldest joined in at year 2. Nothing much has changed, some say hello and I try to be friendly.

the incident: I picked up my youngest from nursery and Whilst waiting for eldest I noticed he had a cut on his face. I asked him what happened and he told me, not first time something like this has happened but I never contacted school as they’re like 3 or 4 so expected. One of the mums from eldests class came over and said hi to me. I really regret this but I showed her the scratch and asked her if I should speak to the teacher. Bear in mind I don’t have any relationship with these mums apart from hi and bye. I feel she must think I’m a drama queen. I do come across as very stressed as I am stressed with other things in my life. I feel very vulnerable at the moment as I’m lonely here and maybe I did over react? I didn’t contact teacher btw. Still considering what to do.

Well how did the rest of the conversation go with this lady?

@Nearlythere80 i could see the look on her face so I quickly changed it to how her Xmas and New Years was. I just felt her edging away from me!

Don’t worry, you are overthinking it x

she wont have thought you were being dramatic, she’s probably not even given it a second thought other than just making conversation

I think your anxiety is making you massively overthink this.

You have done nothing wrong, odd or weird by asking this other mum's opinion. What did she say back to you?

I would've asked the teacher if they knew how the scratch happened if my child wasn't able to tell me.

But don't think you've done something out of the ordinary by mentioning it to another mum.

Don't worry. What you did wasn't weird or odd at all. It would have been obvious to another mum that a cut on your child's face would be a worry. How did the other mum react? A nice person would have been supportive, sympathised and agreed you should mention it to the school. So if she behaved as though you were odd, that's her, not you.

It depends, when she said 'hi' to you did you say hi back? Or did you literally ignore her greeting and start talking about the scratch?
Both are quite different scenarios to me.

She reacted like really cold to me. Like she didn’t want to get involved in my “drama”.

@anony24444 i mean this kindly, but unless you were waiting hysterically and throwing your arms around shouting "my poor baby, look at the scratch", the rest of it (about drama) is in your head.

@Dacadactyl thank you! That made me laugh. I’m sure I wasn’t but in my head I’m making it bigger

Oh please don't worry - we don't know anything about this lady you mentioned the scratch to, she might have her own crippling anxiety and not want to be asked her opinion on if you should / shouldn't report

You did nothing wrong, perfectly normal question - not your issue to understand why the other person didn't want to engage

I think you’re probably overthinking this but it depends how it actually went, did she come over to say hi, how are you etc, you said something like yeah fine thanks but DS has just come out with this scratch on his face, do you think I should speak to the teacher..?

If so that’s absolutely normal and I don’t know why you’d worry? It’s not a drama, just a conversation.

Unless you didn’t even say hi and launched into the scratch like it was something you were packing about?

@Changingplace my personality in general is very panicky (not sure if others notice) but I do tend to panic about small things. The scratch was near the eye which I was worried about more

Worst case scenario if I came across as panicky and drama queen what must she be thinking?

If I was the mum my first thought would be “oh shit, it might have been my kid who hurt your kid” arghhh 😱

It’s very difficult to answer this with no more information!

When you say, i could see the look on her face and she was edging away She reacted like really cold to me. Like she didn’t want to get involved in my “drama”. it could be that you are being totally paranoid or that you did overreact and she didn’t want to get sucked into a drama. You and her are the only ones that will be able to answer that.

How did the conversation actually go?
Person: Hi
You:

What was said and how?

This was my first thought!

Nursery should have given you an incident form though, which makes me think they hadn’t seen it. I’d definitely speak to them about it (I work across nursery and early years so spend half my life filling those slips in!)

Massively overthinking.

I think you're probably being paranoid. Most mums are more than happy to chat about kids and how things work at the school.

I know I was once waiting for my two oldest to finish at a hobby and my year old was toddling about. She fell on her face and bit her lip and there was lots of blood. I thought she'd knocked her teeth out but couldn't bear to look. I'm normally quite calm but am a bit funny with teeth. I saw a mum I barely knew and kind of thrust my baby at her asking if she thought I needed to get her checked. She was very caring and all was well. I think it's quite normal to help out other mums with parenting queries. It takes a village and all that.

And if your little one comes out of nursery with a cut that the teachers don't mention to you at handover I would go back and query it. Not to complain but just so they register it's happened and might think to keep a closer eye out for anyone hurting the others. It also prevents them seeing the scratch the next day and assuming it's happened in your care.

Do you think this mum is now still thinking about this and talking about you to others?

No!! She isn’t giving you a second thought.

She probably just wanted to be on her way back home to start the weekend.

Remember that you are thinking about you far more than anyone else is!

This incident is of minuscule importance. In fact it’s not even an incident! Go and relax now.

You're over-thinking things. I'm almost 65 and over-think every conversation/event/thought. I'd leave the incident for now, but if your child gets another mark or seems upset, then talk to the teacher.

Could you perhaps ask one of the mums round for coffee? Or ask if there are any groups you could join?

I wouldn’t think twice about this and would give my opinion if a random person asked.

I would be taken back if you screamed it at me though and so it depends on your tone.

I honestly think it’s bigger in your head than it actually was.
We always look back and focus on our actions more and cringe.

The great thing is that you’ve started the conversation with her and so next time you can see her and say hi and perhaps ask her what class her child is in etc.

I agree with this, OP 🙂
To me, what you said doesn’t sound like drama at all.
Nothing unreasonable about wondering whether or not you should mention the scratch to teacher.

Worst case scenario she’d be thinking ‘Oh, anony24444 seems a bit health anxious.’

That’s it. Then she’ll be thinking about something else!

We all worry about different things. I’ve never thought less of any of my friends or acquaintances being a bit more anxious than I am about their child’s health, certainly not if it didn’t affect me or my DC in any way.

More likely she's got anxiety built herself up to say hi, realised you had something going on tried to back out discreetly! Say hi on Monday =)

She probably hasn't given it a second thought, she's a busy mum and I'm sure hasn't got time to be giving you more than a passing thought! You are massively overthinking this OP - stop worrying about it and next time you see her just smile and say hi