Monday, September 26, 2011

A Rough Morning

This morning was rough for Katelynn. She refused to go to school. When it was time to leave I went out to get the other two kids into the car. She started crying, screaming and climbed up onto her bunk bed. It took some effort to get her down and into the car. After we got to the school I was out at the car with her for about 15 minutes, then finally carried her into the front office, since by this point school had already started. She cried for another 10-15 minutes in the office, then the principal took us into her office. She talked with Katelynn, tried to get her to calm down, and asked her why she didn't want to go to class. Katelynn kept saying she was scared and wanted to stay with me. After a while the principal was able to convince Katelynn to go, and she took her to class.

When I was out at the car with Katelynn I saw a friend of mine who had just dropped off her kids.  As she was driving away she mouthed, "Good luck!", and gave me an encouraging smile. After I left the school I sent her a text telling her that we had just barely gotten Katelynn into class. She texted back that she'd wanted to help, but didn't want to intrude. Then she said that as she was walking she saw the other two kids and said, "Hey, Michael. Have a good day!" He said, "No, it's going to be a GREAT day!" and gave her a big smile. That totally cracked me up. At least one of the kids will be having a good day at school today, right?!

4 comments:

  1. Sorry it was such a rough morning. I'm concerned about why Katelynn is scared, though. Maybe something happened? Is she being bullied? If this is completely out of the blue, never having happened before, I think it merits follow-up conversation with her, maybe in the evening -- when she's not going to school or just barely gotten home. When she's out of the immediacy of the situation, she might talk more comfortably.

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  2. I TOTALLY agree with Janelle-- there HAS to be a problem! Kids don't usually just out of the blue freak out like that and ESPECIALLY say they are scared. Tonight you really, really need to talk to her about it! Something has to be going on! Hopefully she will open up to you and tell you about it!

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  3. Scott & I plan on talking to her tonight, but it's not the first time she's done that, just not to that extreme (length of fit, etc). She said that she was scared because she would have to do her work and it's not fun. She's been having a hard time getting her work done and staying on task in class lately, so some of it may be feeling pressure, anxiety, overwhelmed, etc by her school work. Another part may be that Scott is getting ready to leave this weekend, and she always has a hard time when he's gone 'cause she's such a Daddy's girl.

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  4. Aha. Yeah that might make sense, especially with Scott leaving. It could also be an attention thing, I guess! If it came out of the blue, though, I would have worried something was going on. It wasn't until my sister was in high school that she revealed why she always cried about going to school in 4th grade-- her teacher told her she talked too much so made her do her schoolwork IN THE CLOSET every day! So when I hear stories like that about kids no longer liking school, it just scares me because bad things can happen at school! But, like you said, it could be Scott leaving or begging for attention by not wanting to go to school! Actually, Makenna has cried about going to preschool because she is jealous that Max gets so much one-on-one with mom time! You never know with the kiddos! ; )

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