Hello, apologies in advance because this is quite long. But there is relevant context/back story.
DD 10 is very anxious when doing things either away from me or without her set friends from school. This includes even being left with her dad if I go out for the evening.
the back story is that during 2020 she had a fairly serious freak/ fluke accident and spent sometime in hospital. She is 100% recovered and it’s behind us. And then her dad was diagnosed with a serious mental health condition after some extremely manic behaviour, bought on in part due to the stress of covid19 and the lockdown and accident etc on top of a pre existing condition we didn’t know he had. he spent 2 Stints on a psychiatric ward on a section and tried to take his own life. DD wasn’t witness to any of this, but was being cared for by me and obviously I was extremely stressed out. She has since had help from ‘young minds’ and school and they say she is coping really well. We have explained everything in a truthful but age appropriate way with help from professionals. Unfortunately DH illness led to some social isolation for DD because we live in a small town and DH behaviour was very public and people started to avoid us and invites to play dates etc dried up.
she has a good bunch of friends at school but there are the usual dramas of year 5 girls and her particular friend is growing up faster (DD still likes toys) and I can see that friendship will be less reliable. So I’m keen for her to have friends from other places than school.
But she has started becoming extremely anxious about doing any of her extra curricular clubs. This is especially compounded if there are going to be older children there particularly teenagers
She is booked next week to attend a 3 day club with the activity she really really loves the most. And tonight she has been almost hysterical saying she doesn’t want to go. But can’t articulate why. By hysterical I mean sobbing and flopping around the sofa and floor saying she just won’t go. She is not new behaviour but I feel like it’s getting worse.
im unsure whether to let her off going to the club so she feels validated and listened too. But concerned that if I do that a) she’ll miss out on some really good fun and learning a new skill and making friendships. And b) she’ll think she can just opt out of everything that’s out of her comfort zone.
thank you for your patience if you’ve got this far. She’s such a sweet girl and I want to do the right thing by her as she’s had such a rough few years.