Sorry to be so needy...just worried and need advice

[Lougle]

DD2 (5.3) has now been off school since half-term, so 8 school days off. Unprecedented for her.

I took her to the GP on 12/11/12 (Monday) to check if she is really poorly, or if she is faking expressing anxiety as physical symptoms. His verdict was that her glands in her neck were up, she has had a glandular response to an infection and her description of the tummy pain is most like mesenteric adenitis and very genuine.

She says she is poorly in the morning. By 09.00 ish she seems absolutely fine. Then she falls asleep before lunch. All afternoon she seems fine. By 6pm she is pale as a ghost, tearful, etc. Her appetite is reduced.

So, she seems to be too unwell for school. But then, there is the school issue, which seems to be mounting. She's normally a 'blood out of a stone' character. But over the last few days she has revealed:

-Friends are tricky because children follow me around the playground and all I want to do is drink.
-The classroom doesn't look like my old classroom and everything is in the wrong place.
-I don't like it that I have to do different (cursive) writing. I want to do my old writing.
-I want to be back in my old classroom where the bikes and trikes are.
-When it's noisy, it hurts my ears and gives me a headache. My classroom isn't noisy, but when we do music it goes 'cling clang clack' and it all hurts my ears. In my old classroom, we were next to and all the children came out near us at playtime and that was too noisy.

My confident happy child has disappeared. Today I took her with me to DD1's special school coffee morning. She spent the whole morning grinning at me inanely and hiding her face in my shoulder, peeking out from behind it. Of course, what people saw was a pretty cute girl, grinning, but she was whispering to me that she was shy.

Anyway, if you don't want to chuck me off board by now...

What do I do? I tried to arrange to take her to see her teacher tonight, but the helpful receptionist said 'staff meeting. Not possible.' I suppose she is not well for school, really...perhaps if she wasn't saying all this other stuff, I'd accept that. My head hurts.

Yes, but possibly with the promise that you will call at lunchtime to check how she's been, and maybe with a token of some sort (friendship bracelet? One of your earrings attached to her sock?) to reassure her that you are thinking of her all through the day.

Can you tell her the story of the little girl and the giant? The one where the huge scary giant gets smaller and smaller as the little girl tells him she isn't scared of him, and then in the end she walks over and pops him in her pocket? It's all about how worries can get bigger and bigger when we are away until we feel like they are huge, but if we confront them (with help and support from Mum and teachers) they can actually turn out to be much smaller in the end. I'm not trying to dismiss her sensory issues or her concerns, just trying to reasusre her that you understand what is worrying her and you and the teachers are going to try to work together to sort it out.

ilikemysleep, some lovely thoughts.

I took her in. She was very resistant to getting dressed (but compliant..that's half the problem) and when I took her into the playground she slowed her steps as she approached the classroom.

Her teacher spotted her and said 'oh I'm glad to see you', which was nice, but DD2 hid in my shoulder. I told her to stand up tall like Matilda does, and then told her teacher that DD2 can spell 'difficulty'. The teacher showed interest, so DD2 very timidly said 'Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs FFI; Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs LTY.' It's a start.

:)
Yay Lougle! And Yay DD!