AIBU to want to run and hide with DD2?

[lougle]

She's stressed again, because she had to do her reading challenge for school. Her book contained the word 'Czechoslovakia'. She was screaming and yelling at DH that she'd never be able to read that word.

I calmed her a little, helped her to break it down phonically, told her that the z is like an h in our language, then wrote the word down with the sounds underneath. She could read each sound easily. She could blend the sounds with the one next to it, but she just couldn't get past the fact that it was a 'long word' and wouldn't attempt it, but equally didn't want DH to read the word because then she'd never learn it and remember it.

She was so stressed. Already. School doesn't even start until Monday.

Thank you star

Today, DD2 said she was too poorly for school, with tummy ache. I took her in, spoke to her teacher, who was lovely and said 'I felt worried about school, too, DD2. We'll get in the swing of it again.'

So...

As I picked up DD3 from her classroom and started to walk to DD2's classroom, the SENCO was waiting for me and asked to 'walk and talk'.

She's asked permission to put DD2 in their 'Dragonflies' group. It's a nurture group for 5 children - a mix of Y2 (DD2's year) and Y3. It means pulling her out of class twice per week, but at this stage the SENCO and I agree that it's far more important to deal with this side of things than to have time in the classroom.

I got around to DD2's class and DD2 was stood inside the doorway, popping some bubble wrap on a side unit, away with the fairies. Her teacher said that she'd done well, but had complained of tummy pain on and off all day. The teacher felt it was anxiety rather than illness. I'm absolutely made up by that for three reasons:

a) DD2 has actually told the teacher that she has a problem (in her old school she'd come out of school with a blazing fever and wouldn't have said that she was ill to anyone, because she thought that the teachers must know she's ill).

b) The teacher has taken it seriously enough to tell me - would never have happened in the old school - it was always minimised to DD2 and then not even passed on to me.

c) The teacher has seen past the tummy pain to the cause of it.

I asked DD2 about the tummy pain and she said 'it's better now.' So I said 'did it get better earlier in the day, or at the end of school?' She said 'It got better in assembly, because assembly is nearly the end of school!'.

So, slowly but surely, they're putting support in the right places.

I must ask the SENCO whether dragonflies is as well as ELSA, instead of ELSA, or is classed as a sort of extended ELSA, tomorrow.

Sounds good lougle, I agree about the nurture group being more important than being in the classroom

Dd3 is currently out of class most afternoons to try to sort out her anxiety.

Its brilliant that your Dd2 has told the teacher about her tummy ache (can she teach Dd3 how to tell someone she feels unwell) but even more brilliant that the teacher recognised that it was anxiety !! (Dd3 just pukes and gets herself sent home )

Hope everything continues to move forward for you and Dd2

That's really good to hear, Lougle and well done to Lougle's dd2 for telling the teacher about the tummy ache and, especially, for making it through day 1 of term

We had INSET day today, we start tomorrow.

Oh Lougle. Your dd2 just gas SO much going for her. If she can just continue to get support consistently, timely and efficiently especially when she hits her teens she sounds as if she coukd be quite something.

It's great the school are switched on. Have high expectations of them and above all your dd. She's obviously both talented and vulnerable.

Thank you all so much I do love her, so very much, you know.

Something else happened today, which made me marvel, a bit.

We were leaving the school car park and it started to rain. Monday is our swimming lesson day. I said (somewhat absent mindedly) 'Goodness girls. You won't need to go to the swimming pool to get wet today!'

DD2 said 'Does that mean that we can't go swimming because it's raining? '

I said 'No, DD2...it was a sort of joke. I was saying that it was so wet that we'll get wet before we get to the swimming pool.'

DD2 said 'I don't get that kind of joke.' Then she muttered 'You should know I don't.

DD2 has realised that she doesn't get non-literal jokes.

One thing the Paed said a year ago, was that he wondered if DD2 had too much 'insight' to have ASD. Is it true? My view has been that she's a 'tricky girl' and that 'tricky girls' tend to have slightly different issues than 'tricky boys'.

Annnd...sorry...I'm so boring...but

This morning, DD3 (4) had got herself completely organised with her lunch box, book bag, PE Kit bag, 'Happy book' to return to school,etc.

I decided to help DD2 out, so I took all of DD3's gear and DD2's book bag, PE Kit bag, bag of materials for their topic, etc. I just asked her to please get her lunch box.

I came back from the car and the girls said they were ready. I sorted the dog while they went to the car. I got there...no DD2's lunch box.

I was a little exasperated and said 'How is that DD3 could get herself sorted out but you didn't bring your lunch box?'

DD2 said 'Because she's smarter than me?'

I said 'No, darling, she isn't smarter than you. You're very clever too. You just need to think more.'

DD2 said 'It's because my brain is lost.'

I said 'What?'

DD2 said 'My brain is always lost somewhere. I never know where it is.'

I dunno. I marvel at Amber's insight. It's beyond mine. I think it just depends on what a person/child chooses to focus their thoughts on or spend time practising.

Yes, she's got 'sarcastic' down pat. Whenever I'm sarcastic she is compelled to say 'you're being sarcastic, aren't you?'

Unfortunately, DD1 and DD3 do it too. So I have a little chorus of 'You're being sarcastic, aren't you?' and even more unfortunately, sarcasm is my survival tool.

She is astute. I think it just baffles me that she can be so insightful in some ways, yet we have had about 20 discussions about human reproduction, at her instigation, in very great detail (thanks in part to DD3 asking me 'what are these bumps on my lulu, there are two of them...cue anatomy diagrams), and at the end of each discussion, her conclusion is

"So we really are just like chickens then, because they have babies in eggs too."

So, for the 20th time, I have to explain that we're different, because we don't lay eggs, we have an egg that joins with the sperm, then the egg changes and becomes a person. That the egg isn't there any more when the person is born. But when the chick is born, it's inside the egg.

She nods sagely. She seems to be absorbing it. Until the next time that she says:

"So we really are just like chickens then, because they have babies in eggs too."

Must say Lougle am very impressed at your dd2's emerging self-awareness and her ability to express them. So encouraging.

'Astute' was the first word our private salt used re my dd2 when dd2 had her first therapy session aged 4.

It's a conundrum when you have to constantly gear-shift between 'astute and insightful' and 'immature and immovable' (referring to my dd2 there).

I think being astute can mean having a jolly good handle on your OWN perspective. Enough to stay rigidly attached to it and argue from that perspective unwaveringly.

zzzzz - run fast. They are inside the sac but they are not in a shell and they have notbeen dumped on the floor to fight their own way out!

What about fish eggs?

Oh! The absolute funniest thing about today:

I said to DD2's teacher, on the way out of school, 'Czechoslovakia has a lot to answer for, you know ' and she said 'Ohh! Is that where you went for the holidays?'

I paused, laughed, and said 'No, but it's in the book DD2 had to read and she went into complete meltdown. The concept of 'cz' being 'ch' was totally beyond reason, and then I made it worse by explaining it's not our language, to which DD2 exclaimed 'well how on earth am I meant to read it if it isn't even my language??'

We both laughed. As if I would take her to Czechoslovakia (which no longer exists, incidentally) if I could afford to go away. I'm not that dedicated to her education.

Nooo Star...don't you try and back me into a corner. We all know that fish eggs are laid, then they either survive or they don't. We carry our babies and nurture them, and then we push them out or open the sun roof.

We are mammals. Not fish. Not birds. Not insects.

M A M M A L S.

And before one of you wiseacres points out that both the platypus and echidna are mammals which lay eggs. They are Monotremes, and we are placental mammals.

Now, who wants a fight??

www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Resources-Chick-Cycle-Exploration/dp/B001SCA71G

This was DS' absolute favourite Christmas present.

I am defeated. My neck hurts.

I am so not letting DD2 read over my shoulder on this thread