When your daughter won't talk to you

I fully, fully expected to be writing this post when she was a teenager. But at age 5? Oy vey! The past couple weeks have been totally unchartered territory for Graham and I and I'm scared to think what else could be coming down the pipe if KINDERGARTEN is already this hard. Sigh.

It all started (or so we think) just over two weeks ago when I got a call from the nurse at Isla's school. She'd been crying in class and claiming that she did not feel well. Because this was the first time her teacher had ever, ever heard Isla raise even a pinky of resistance, she took the conservative approach and sent her to the nurse. After talking to her on the phone and hearing the sadness in her voice, I came to pick her up. It took me about 3 seconds to realize she wasn't actually ill. But I went with it since there was only about 50 minutes left in the school day and Isla joined the rest of us on our errands. We enjoyed a typical weekend at home and then began the new week as normal. Except things were no longer normal. Our formerly uber-cheerful-happy-go-lucky girl began crying daily both before leaving for school and reportedly multiple times during class. Her teacher said she was claiming to "miss me" and be sad. I kicked it into high gear and was super intentional about spending extra time with her, talking, cuddling and even doing a one-on-one date. I poured in and poured in and poured in. To no avail. Her figurative bucket had giant hole and all the extra lovin' seemed to drain out faster than I could keep it going in. Graham says he can relate to this feeling of futility I was experiencing. But that's another story...

We chalked it up to "all the recent changes" in our lives and tried to convince ourselves that she was long overdue to experience some adjustment challenges. But her sadness ate away at me and my mama instinct told me not to write it off. The more we tried to talk with Isla about what was bothering her, the more she shut down. Before we knew it, any school-related conversation was met with a vehement "I don't want to talk about it!!!" Something was really upsetting our sweet girl and I felt entirely helpless.

We communicated daily with her teacher, either in person or via email to find out how things were going and to attempt to trouble shoot. Eventually I gathered enough information through snippets of conversations to feel pretty confident it was someone and not something that was bothering her. When it became quite obvious we were getting nowhere, I questioned her directly about a particular individual, and she fell to the floor crying and yelling "I don't want to talk about it!!!" Her response was so intense and almost knee-jerk in nature that I knew we were finally onto something.

Can I just stop right here and say how heart-breaking and freaky and nerve-wracking it is to watch your child be affected in this way and have literally NO idea what exactly is bothering her? When the sky's the limit, your adult mind goes EVERYWHERE. Everywhere, I tell you. I feared making a mountain out of a mole hill but my heart of hearts also screamed that children are so very impressionable and life-long damage can happen early and in a flash. I worried about every conversation. Everything I said. Everything I didn't say. How I said it. One wrong word or wrong tone could send the wrong message that she could carry with her forever. I guess that about sums up parenting for you in a nutshell. We're always one sentence away from totally screwing up our kids. Or so we fear.

I worried I was acting to fast. But then again I wondered if I hadn't been fast enough. WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON WITH MY KID??!!! Did I need to pull her out of school? Homeschool? Switch classes? Deep breath. Think, think, think! I entertained the idea of getting her in to see a counselor ASAP to see if they could use their magical therapy powers to get her to open up. I beat myself up that I could already, only 5 1/2 years in, have communicated the underlying message that I was not a safe place for my child. That somehow she couldn't tell me what was going on. That I might be mad at her or upset at her or that she might be in trouble if she told me. How?! It nearly killed me.

Once we determined what, well actually, who, we believed to be the problem, we requested that Isla move to a new table to provide some distance between her and this child. This was last Tuesday. Her teacher was 100% on board and, as a side note, has been so loving and caring through this whole process. I praise the Lord that she is also a believer and she has been taking extra time to encourage Isla in class when she starts feeling sad. I wish I could report that everything is great now. Things have definitely improved some but we have yet to figure out what exactly is happening to upset Isla so much. I'd like to give a shout out to Graham who is incredible in situations like this and I'm so grateful for his level-headed yet caring brains. Slowly but surely, he's been able to get Isla to open up, bit by bit, more and more.

I'm beginning to think (which will probably come as no surprise to any of you with child psychology experience) that she literally cannot tell us what is bothering her. It isn't that she is intentionally keeping it from us. It's that she is unable to put into words how she feels when she is around this child. Even if this is not the case, I'm choosing to believe it for now as I don't think my mama ego could handle the alternative at the moment. We have been successful with making statements like "I'm afraid he is going to hurt my feelings" and she will tell us if our statement is "close" or "far" but beyond that, we're coming up empty.

Until we get to the bottom of this, we are doing our earthly parent best to pour on the love, thick and rich. We have been giving her extra hugs, reminding her all the time that she is safe, that Jesus is always with her, that we are here to help her, that she can tell us anything and we won't be upset. She still "doesn't want to talk about it" whenever we ask.

She's been our always-lively 5 year old again this weekend, outside of the classroom, and so that's been refreshing. But tomorrow is Monday and with it likely will come a new batch of anxiety though I'm praying that won't be the case! As for ME, I am trying to take comfort in the fact that ultimately, she is the Lord's. She has been entrusted to my care and I am going to do my darnedest to be super mom. But also, I can let go and rest assured that He loves her oh so very much more than I ever could or will. Pray for us, will you?