Saturday 30 June 2012

school 'fun' day :/

As the title suggests, it was the day of the school fun day today.
I woke up listening to Jamie telling Alex a ghost story, well sort of ghost story, she was saying about how the two big soft toy cats we've got come alive at night time and go downstairs and eat all our food. Because Alex gets a bit scared of things like this, I asked him if he was getting scared and he replied " nope, because I like zombies" Jamie said " well I don't think you'd like one if you actually met a real one". No

After making 4 different lunches at the same time (I knew that time working in kitchens would pay off : / ) we set off down the road to the fun day.

As soon as we got there, we got in the queue for the jam jar raffle, Jamie said she didn't want to do it, but Alex did, and I noticed that Jamie was frantically chewing on a bracelet that she had brought with her, she seemed really nervous or something. when they'd got their jam jars (Jamie changed her mind in the end) we went over to where the bouncy castle was and Alex was well up for a good old bounce but Jamie didn't want to, in fact she said she didn't want to do anything - this was after she was really happy about going there in the first place...and then Alex didn't want to go on his own, so we just walked around, looking for the cake stall. we found somewhere in the shade to eat our cakes, then I saw that some of the mums were putting on a belly dancing show(actually, one of them was a dad!), which I wanted to go watch, but Jamie didn't want to....so then then neither did Alex(copycat) so it was just me and Amelia watching them. Jamie kept coming up to me shouting "when are we going to go?" And when I was listening to a girl singing, she stood there covering her ears saying "this is really annoying!"
Jamie did nothing but moan the whole time :( I don't understand. She always does this whenever we go to anything like this, this is why we never go to festivals, or to see any live music, which is really sad because I'd love to go to a festival :(

I am a bit concerned about Jamie at the moment, she thinks that she is so brilliant at everything, she's always saying "I'm really good at doing this" "look how good i am" or "I'm the best at this" and she's a really bad winner, and I've tried to explain to her quite a few times that other people get a bit annoyed if you keep saying things like that, but she says " I wasn't doing doing anything!" in complete denial that she's done anything wrong. She's really controlling (or ties to be). She wont try anything new because she's so scared of failing, and she makes out that she thinks almost everything is rubbish. She is really shy, to the point that she appears rude(refuses to say hello to a friend in passing), either that or she really doesn't care! I just can't work her out sometimes. Is this normal 7 year old girl behaviour??

As soon as we got away from the school, she seemed to go back to normal, I asked her why she didn't like it there. She said it was too noisy and there were too many people. I've been concentrating on Alex's problems all this time, but maybe I've overlooked something in Jamie. She's really smart and popular at school, but does that mean everything's ok?

I'm not jumping to any conclusions, but if Aspergers and sensory disorders are hereditary and theres a lot flying around, then maybe she does have a tendency towards something??

I'm sure when we're all home educating together, I'll get to know her more, and she'll get the school system out of her and she can be herself more. I really look forward to it :)

5 comments:

  1. It all sounds pretty normal for a 7 year old girl!
    They have a lot to deal with and don't have the skills to cover their anxiety up. Hence the chewing things, worrying about failing, worrying about what others think about things - must fit in and only like the safe things that everyone else likes. We also had lots of general crabbyness and days of trying to work out what the root cause of the anxiety was each time. And that was without the competitive, social pressures from school. The I'm best at everything sounds like she is just reacting to being surrounded by people who go on about people being good at something - parents and teachers praising behaviour and work, and other children competing. School can be a competitive world, where everyone is being monitored so comparisons are made and everyone seems to talk about whether they are good at things or not.

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  2. Aw, hopefully once she's had chance to deschool and relax, you'll be able to get a better idea of whether there are underlying issues or it was school-induced anxiety :( not long now... xx

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  3. Katherine, that really makes sense, i hadn't thought of that really but there is so much emphasis on how well they are doing at school, they have the different groups in the classroom for the different levels of 'ability' and they're constantly changing, one kid might get moved to a higher group, another one might get moved down, so all the children know who's in what group and how 'clever' they are. And I suppose Jamie is under quite a bit of pressure being in the top group. and that would explain her never wanting to try anything new because she's scared of losing or at least not winning, it's a shame because there are so many things I know she'd love to do :( I'd love to know how I can help her, but I guess like Yarwo said, when she's deschooled, she may feel a lot better :)

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  4. I find large noisy groups difficult too and it is because it hurts my ears, I need ear defenders to be able to cope with the noise. They might help your daughter. At your daughters age I didn't understand what the problem was, I would just get upset and not want to do stuff. When I was very young I would deal with it by crying and falling asleep. I slept through some of the best films after begging to go and see them.

    Other children didn't like me much when I first came out of school because I wouldn't talk to them and it seemed a but rude but really I was just terrified of them. I have no problem talking to my family unless I am really stressed but strangers in a stressful situation (such as when I am in pain because of my hearing) are a different matter, I sort of shut down. Ear defenders help with this too.

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  5. thanks Beth, that does sound like Jamie, I'm not sure if she'd even wear ear defenders though, she's got to that stage where she's got to act cool lol, mind you, you can get inner ear ones can't you...i wonder if you can childrens ones??

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