attachment parenting and an assignment
Precious has an assignment for tomorrow, in kindergarten. This month, for "show and share" the students are asked to read a book out loud to the rest of the class. Honestly, when I saw the note about this a few weeks ago, my heart dropped to my stomach.......Precious has to read a book out loud? Precious hates to read and she has severe anxiety.....and.....are you kidding me? In Kindergarten? Maybe for a typical child this would be mildly stressful but challenging in a good way. Maybe it is a good test of her ability to handle nerves and performance.......but for my child it is a nightmare. Courageously, she chose a book last week and we have been reading together daily, practicing the hard words......reading is really hard for Precious. In and of itself, this breaks my heart. I love words. I love poetry and lyrics of songs and I love stories and I love novels. It makes my heart ache that she cannot share the magic of written words......instead, for now anyway, .....the words are her burden.
Tonight, she fell apart. Panic, tears, sobbing, begging to not go to school.....in a valiant show of resilience she even picked a different book that is easier to read and I said "yes!"....but that wasn't the answer.....the panic attack raged on......
My deepest ache tonight is that if I were a stay-at-home mom, I would just keep her home tomorrow and skip the ordeal. I would call her in sick and we would stay home and read books together and eat all her favorite things and sit in the hot tub and just be ok. I have to go to work. I have responsibilities. People are counting on me. It is a mom fail to admit that I have to send her out so that I can go do my job. Heart. Breaking.
Her teacher is sweet and kind and I have been texting her tonight. She gave Precious permission to not read a book.....but that wasn't the answer for my daughter. That didn't fix it. We prayed, we snuggled, we talked, we just held each other....and still the anxiety raged inside of her. It's not that she doesn't want to do the assignment. She wants to do it. Well.
Jeremiah walked into the bedroom as we struggled to calm the storm. I asked him if he would be willing to come from 6th grade to Kindergarten and help Precious read her book. He said "yes". Her teacher said "yes". I fully expect his teacher to say "yes" as well and if that doesn't work, than I will leave my job for an hour, or I will ask Roger to do so. She feels like she can do it if one of us does it with her.
That. my friends.....is called Attachment. After a long time of sobbing, she finally stopped when she knew that one of us would join her for this assignment to read a book in front of her class. Knowing that we don't have to do hard things alone gives us strength and courage.......and Precious teaches this better than anyone else on earth.
Tonight, she fell apart. Panic, tears, sobbing, begging to not go to school.....in a valiant show of resilience she even picked a different book that is easier to read and I said "yes!"....but that wasn't the answer.....the panic attack raged on......
My deepest ache tonight is that if I were a stay-at-home mom, I would just keep her home tomorrow and skip the ordeal. I would call her in sick and we would stay home and read books together and eat all her favorite things and sit in the hot tub and just be ok. I have to go to work. I have responsibilities. People are counting on me. It is a mom fail to admit that I have to send her out so that I can go do my job. Heart. Breaking.
Her teacher is sweet and kind and I have been texting her tonight. She gave Precious permission to not read a book.....but that wasn't the answer for my daughter. That didn't fix it. We prayed, we snuggled, we talked, we just held each other....and still the anxiety raged inside of her. It's not that she doesn't want to do the assignment. She wants to do it. Well.
Jeremiah walked into the bedroom as we struggled to calm the storm. I asked him if he would be willing to come from 6th grade to Kindergarten and help Precious read her book. He said "yes". Her teacher said "yes". I fully expect his teacher to say "yes" as well and if that doesn't work, than I will leave my job for an hour, or I will ask Roger to do so. She feels like she can do it if one of us does it with her.
That. my friends.....is called Attachment. After a long time of sobbing, she finally stopped when she knew that one of us would join her for this assignment to read a book in front of her class. Knowing that we don't have to do hard things alone gives us strength and courage.......and Precious teaches this better than anyone else on earth.
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