What about Meels

Here I am, sitting on the floor in the corner of a Kid’s Church classroom, looking like a helicopter nutter mom. Or a homeless person looking for a warm wall to lean against. The room is full of happy and excited 6 year olds, except for the one with tears running down her cheeks looking like she just watched someone shoot Bambi’s mother. That one is mine. 

This is what I do –Baby Step my kid all the way to normalcy.

The teacher this week was very firmly, “No, mother must stay out. She will be fine. Don’t worry.”

I am not worried, but I know my kid and we’ve already tried it your way the first week. She cried the entire time. No one needs to deal with that as they are trying to teach a room full of easily distractible children. I explained that she would cry and get all worked up and the teacher replied, “Then we will send her to you in service.” Let me save you the trouble of sending her since I already know the outcome of that experiment. She’d be thrilled to be in big church with me. 

The teacher wanted me to talk to the kids church coordinator and get permission to stay and I tried to explain that I already had, but then thankfully a teacher from the week before arrived and asked if I was sitting in the back of the room again? I took that as permission and settled in on the floor as Camille stopped freaking out, sobbing, and reaching for me once she realized that I wasn’t leaving. 

I’m not staying with Camille because I’m worried about her. I’m trying to teach her to be comfortable in a new place. We have an agreement — I will stay in the back of the room, she will participate in class, and we will ignore each other. It lets her brain relax enough to actually be present, enjoy what is going on, and creates a new safe space for her. Yes, I know it doesn’t make sense. Yes it would be easier to have her sit with me in big church every week, something she begs to do, but it wouldn’t be the best thing for her in the long run. She’s going to face new things her entire life and I’m trying to give her the tools to eventually face them alone. Preferably without meds, though thank God they are available if she ever needs them. 

Oh crap. Why is she wiping away tears again? They threw her a curve ball by making a fuss about me being here at the beginning of class. It’s totally screwing up the progress we had made the week before. 

So close and yet so far. Good thing I don’t care what people think, but it is frustrating when someone who doesn’t know her is convinced if I just left that she would get over it. I understand that may happen with most kids, but she is a 1%er. We went through the same routine when we moved to Bahrain — I sat in the back of Kid’s Church for so many weeks that I eventually ended up teaching long after she was comfortable in class alone. 

Baby steps. That’s my plan for the next 2 weeks. (Or longer if it takes longer). Both at school and church. She’s going to take the bus and I’m going to drive to school and hang out on a bench, reading a book. We will ignore each other and ideally she will get past her irrational fear that grips her before school starts every day.

Update:
^^^ This plan was a massive failure. Instead of being able to relax, she spent her time before school looking for me, making sure that I was still there, and coming over and crying about every little thing. 10 minutes of crying that set me up for a day of exhaustion. Since she was crying whether I was there or not, I bought her some special art supplies and said she could color or draw before school and if she cried, oh well. She managed OK on Thursday and her wonderful teacher made her a chart titled “Happy Days are Here to Stay” where she gets a sticker for tear free days (with an allowance for a few tears before school).