Early Signs That You Have an Anxious Child

This past year has been quite eventful in our household.  On the heels of my husband finishing school to become a teacher, and taking the real estate plunge(s) of buying and selling our home, my daughter started preschool.  Leading up to her first day, I was told by other parents that I should expect a rough start. A new school can be scary (let’s be honest, a new anything can be scary).  And then came the all too familiar advice, “it’s going to be harder on you than it is on them.” I believe this is meant to be comforting? I’ll be the one sitting in the corner looking at her baby albums, sucking my thumb, and wondering what happened to the time.  My daughter will be off making fast friends and forgetting who I am, because she’s too busy exchanging cheese sticks for crayola marker tattoos on the playground. I wish.  

I can honestly say it has taken the entire school year to get to a “routine” where she’s not crying every morning.  And I’ve gotten pretty good at reading the situations that will set this anxious little girl into a nervous maze of “what ifs”.  There are early signs that your child is anxious about school. Here are some of the signs I’ve become accustomed to:

She wants mornings at school to start out the same everyday: 

• Kids need to be inside when she arrives, not outside
• The kids from the other class, shouldn’t be in her classroom
• She doesn’t want to do “share day” – can’t blame her on this one; it’s pretty much like a college speech class, for five-year-olds
• She wants to know who’s picking her up and when
• She wants the same lunch everyday and she’ll let me know if I pack too much food.  Yes, I’ve told her she doesn’t have to finish everything, but I appreciate that she doesn’t want to be wasteful. (Update: she definitely doesn’t finish everything)
• If I forget something (like her water bottle), it’s tears, lots of tears
• She wakes up in the morning crying about an upcoming classroom activity that she heard about the prior day (she doesn’t want to participate or she doesn’t understand what she’s going to be doing). She needs to talk through it.

I realize that many of these examples can be considered normal behavior for a young child.  However, when you bundle them all together, you get a very anxious, emotional and scared little girl.  And a very sweaty and defeated mom.

At the beginning of the school year, I tried the tough love approach.  I thought she’d figure it all out if I didn’t “give into her attention”.  And it did work. But I can only count these successes on less than one hand.  The other days, the teacher is greeting me in the morning, with distractions for my daughter, so I can sneak away.  Or on the worst days, taking my daughter from my I’m-going-to-be-late-to-work-again arms (Hi Mom Guilt, how are you?).

Now, when she gets picked up, it’s a whole different story.  Based on our work schedules, my husband gets this job most of the time.  He sees a smiling little girl, laughing and having a great time. She has even said on occasion that she doesn’t want to leave preschool.  “And the Oscar goes to….”  

So I ask myself, am I being played?  Probably. But not as much as I once thought.  I admit, between me and my husband, I’m a safer place to cry.  So I’m sure she leans into this. I would. I have had pick-up duty before, and I’ve witnessed, first hand, that little dimpled comedian, running through the plastic play structures.  But anxiety doesn’t mean that she’s not allowed to feel free-spirited and happy. It just means there’s a part of her that has excessive worry. And just like I make time for PlayDoh with the giggling little girl, I make time for the anxious one too.

I let her ask questions or talk about how she’s feeling.  It may not change the situation (school isn’t going away, girl), but it can hopefully equip her with some knowledge about the unknown.  And make me kinda look like a superhero. We both win.