Update on Laetitia's anxiety issues.

After fretting and worrying throughout the week, we eventually got around to speaking with the daycare in-house psychologist (who comes in for observation once every month or so) yesterday evening. Her observation of Laetitia (based on the past and what she saw yesterday) plus our input on what is going on in our lives (mainly the new baby coming - my belly getting obviously bigger) is that the root of what is causing the fear/anxiety recently is two folds. Firstly, the personality of Laetitia and secondly the coming baby.

The psychologist said that Laetitia is a very sensitive child and seeks to please. Well, yes, both Etienne and I are rather sensitive... me more then him considering that during the week I had cried twice in the daycare when I felt lost with how I could help my darling. She observed that my little one is very aware of what is going on around her, how her little friends are feeling/doing etc. And in the case of her little friends doing things that she does not like, even though theoretically she knows that she should say "NO, stop", "I don't like it" , "Don't disturb me" etc, she is unable to get herself to do it. The psychologist feels that this is partly due to her nature of wanting to please, she might be afraid that if she says that or take a strong stand like that, her little friends might not like her anymore. This of course causes a lot of conflict within her little being. I guess that is why she becomes scare of going to the daycare or scare of the kids since she does not know how to deal with her conflicting emotions. I have to say that I feel slightly guilty somehow in how Laetitia's personality/character had a part to play in her feeling the way she does now. I had always told her to be nice and share whenever she plays with others even when someone else tries to take something that she is playing with. What the psychologist said is true, to the child, sometimes it is important that we have to acknowledge that they have the right to something first and not always be the one giving in. In the case of Laetitia, right now it seems that the conflict is that she does not like what was being done to her (other kids being pushy or aggressive) but she dare not say stop or no because she wants to be liked. And this caused her a lot of stress (leading to the manifestation of what we had seen the last 3 weeks or so).

Now onto the fact that the pregnancy or imminent arrival of another child in the family is a big change for an only child, the psychologist noticed a few things that explained that Laetitia is showing signs of worry about her place in the family. Watching her over the day and hearing from the caregivers in the daycare, Laetitia has a particularly harder time with newcomers and the psychologist thinks this is a reflection of her being afraid of losing her place/being replaced. Laetitia also constantly ask to be in the babies section instead of the toddlers section and this could be because she is more secured in her relationship with the adults in the babies section compared to the toddlers section plus she is more in control there.

Her suggestions to us includes the following:-

1) Continue to teach Laetitia to say no, stop etc when it comes to other kids doing things she does not like but to add on and explain that doing that will not change how the kids will play with her and want to be with her.

2) At home, spend time being as a family and explain to Laetitia that her place in our hearts, in our family will not change even with the arrival of the baby. We will still love her as much and she is always our little girl.

3) As we had asked if we should stop going to the daycare for a while to give Laetitia a break, she said that it is not necessary and what I should do is to bring her earlier when the other kids have yet to arrive (that means between 12:15pm to 12:30pm instead of 1:30pm), prepare her before we leave the house, reassure her when we arrive, have a little cuddle time with her and then leave even if she does cry. Let the caregivers calm her down and they will then help her welcome each child that arrives after to give her a sense of them coming into her space.

We should do the above and monitor the situation. The psychologist was very kind and also said we can contact her anytime if we need to discuss more in future.

On a side note, we have found a new nanny and though unsure if this is the right time, I think it had better be now then later since we would probably need the help more when the baby arrives and it is better that Laetitia gets used to this person earlier instead of only when the baby arrives. At least by then, it is only one new face instead of two, one change instead of two. It is also a good thing for me to know if this person can be a good help for when the baby arrives.

Gosh, what challenges there lies for parents. Now I really see how striking a balance in what I teach my child(ren) vs their personality is vital. With Laetitia, because she is a gentle and eager to please child, it is more important to teach her to stand for herself and be assertive while maybe baby number two might need the approach I had always taken, to focus more on sharing and being non-aggressive. Well, we'll see. :-)

The difficulties of raising a gentle soul

My little one is a very gentle soul. She is full of compassion and love. People are always telling me how happy and joyful she always seems and it is true, she is a relatively easy child. She has good sleep habits, is rather well behaved for an almost 3 year old, is sometimes very cheeky and loves to give kisses and hugs.

Now on the flip side, I have come to realise that there are some challenges with having a child so sweet and peace loving. And one of the BIG challenge manifested itself over the last couple of weeks.

About two weeks ago, when I sent her to the daycare, the strangest thing happened. She started to cry and say that she wanted to go home. Since the last year or more, she has always enjoyed going to daycare and sometimes ask about going on weekends so this was a big surprise for me. I stayed to calm her down, sitting with her through story-telling time and finally managed to get her to stop crying and agree to stay and play with her friends. Now, since that time and even slightly before that, I noticed that she is very uncomfortable around a little boy who seemed to be very agressive (pulling her hair and being rough with other kids during drop-off time). Slowly, this escalated to her constantly saying she does not want to go into the daycare center after we arrive. Now this would happen just as she is walking towards the toddlers room after entering the daycare happily. Once she sees a couple of the more "active/dynamic" kids (it's now no longer confined to just that little boy but also other kids who might seem pushy and loud), she turns and runs back to the stroller and says she wants to go home. I managed to get her to go in by carrying her inside and then having one of the caregivers take her in their arms. At that point, about a week ago, I decided to talk to the principal of the daycare about it.

We discussed how we could help Laetitia deal with handling her fears and her approach with these more "active/dynamic" kids. Now, I do not like to label children and during the conversation with the principal, I did not name names of which kids terrify Laetitia nor use negative labels on them. In fact, the exact words we used to described was "dynamic". For lack of a better word, I understand that some toddlers are more aggressive then others but the problem is, they are causing my darling stress. We agreed that on my part, we would speak to Laetitia about it at home and teach her to very loudly tell whoever is upsetting her (either by pulling her hair or disturbing her) to "STOP!", "Leave me alone!" or "I don't like you to do that!" and then tell an adult about it. And the daycare on their part will reassure her and tell her the same thing. This sounds like a good solution at the point we spoke. However, the problem seemed to have grown bigger for Laetitia.

Over the weekend, she had been sick. Since Friday evening, she has been vomiting. Initially I thought it might be a stomach flu. She vomited 6 times in 24 hrs from Friday night to Saturday night and then on Sunday, she seemed better until late evening. She was well throughout the day until about 5pm when she vomited about 5 times between 5-9pm. So, this morning I took her to the doctor. He could not find anything wrong with her. No stomach flu, no gastro etc. And yes, she did not have any diarrhea. He finally concluded that it could be just some stomach spasm. Probably something irritated her stomach and it is causing her to vomit or something psychological. So, instead of keeping her at home as I had intended, I sent her to the daycare and explained to one of the caregivers to give Laetitia small quantities of food for tea time. As we were talking, she mentioned how it might be due to Laetitia's anxiety with the situation in the daycare and it dawn on me how it could very well be it. She did mention that they can see she is visibly stressed and afraid when the boy is around. Right now, Laetitia refuses to be in the toddler section even when he is not around. Last Friday when we arrived at the daycare and she refused to go in (there was one of the louder kids around but seriously I think they are harmless), the assistant principal told me to bring her into the babies section first and then they will slowly integrate her during nap/play time. That worked fine. And today, Laetitia asked to go to the babies section even before we left the house!

So, my conclusion is that her vomiting spells over the weekend is stress related and it started with the little boy (whom I am told today is leaving the daycare after next week) being aggressive towards her and now has lead to her being generally afraid of the other kids who might seem to be more pushy. Now aside from this boy, the other kids are harmless, they are loud but just very excitable. How can I help her to get over her anxiety in dealing with these other children? It hurts me to see my little one crumbling this way. As the daycare personnel said, Laetitia is a child who is very much about love and compassion. She is always the first one to want to give another kid a hug or kiss to comfort them if they are crying. She is always running to help another kid who fell. She does not hit, push or act out in any aggressive manner. And in this case, she cannot understand why this other child is being so violent towards her and it scares her.

I wonder if the way I brought her up is making her less resilient. I always taught her to share, tell her not to hit etc. The normal things that we teach our children. We practice what we teach at home, Etienne and I treat each other with love and respect and we do the same towards our little one. Now the only thing I feel I can do is to talk to her about it, to tell her to stand up for herself, and at the same time tell her that we (her parents, God, the adults etc) are here to protect her and she does not need to be afraid but what else can I do?