Dd avoids talking about "sad things"

[scottlee]

My dd avoids talking about things that make her sad. She is 5 years.

She recently bruised her nail in a school door and didn't tell a teacher. She is a bit of a teacher's pet and gets on well with grown ups. There were other instances when she should have communicated her feelings but chose not to. Eg when she feels scared of doing something, she pretends to be tired and it takes us a while to prise out of her that's she is actually scared. May be she doesn't know?!

As she gets older, I think she may internalise sad thoughts which I don't think is great.

Any suggestions?

First of all, bear in mind that when you say "when she should have communicated her feelings but chose not to" this is your opinion - try not to pressurise her to open up, let her know she can - but then leave her to make that decision. She might be wanting her own control of the situation.

Of course though you want to feel that she can acknowledge and overcome difficult situations. So I would suggest letting her see you in those situations - don't draw attention to it, or contrive it, just do it. Eg. if you slam your thumb in the drawer say "Ow! That really hurt!" Think out loud about how to cope with it eg. "Where's DH? I need a cuddle" or "I'll run it under a cold tap".

The same with fear. She's young, and still needs to see you show her how to cope. But remember that everyone copes in different ways, that might be equally valuable.

With fears, I would say at this stage that you want to emphasise getting comfort for fear - and acknowledging that it's ok to feel fear, rather than trying to reason against the rationality of the fear, if that makes sense?

Dd1 doesn't tell anyone about injuries/upsets at school. Ever. She's year 6 now. She doesn't like plasters or a fuss being made so she would rather suffer in silence. wish she was the same when I'm combing her hair

For injuries it hasn't generally been a problem, but it does mean that if she's being bullied by others it takes a very long time for her to tell anyone, and even then she'll deny it at school. It's taken about a year to deal with what is actaully low level because it took ages for her to tell, then she denied it when the teacher wanted to talk to her about it.