Friday, December 28, 2007

I'm torn

on what or if anything I should do with my daughter. Everything started a little over a year ago after she went on an overnight school field trip. Without me. At the time, we could barely afford to pay for her part because Dean still hadn't found a job. I figured it wouldn't be any big deal because it wasn't has if she hadn't spent the night with at least a couple of her classmates before the trip. Well, since that trip in October 2006, she refuses to spend the night with any of her friends, even the girl, Adaela, that the summer before, you could barely separate the two. As the time has gone by, it has progressively gotten worse. We did "force" her to go on her regular 3 day, 2-night vacation with my ILs, something she's been doing since the age of 5. She did have a good time and was glad she went. However, within the last 6 months, she has even declined to go to birthday parties, the movies, or play dates. Both Dean and I have talked to her about her feelings and tried to get to the bottom of this but she just keeps telling us she "doesn't know". I'm not one to regularly force my child to do something she doesn't want to do. She's at the age where she has been struggling with feelings of fitting in with the kids at school but when I tell her that if she continues to decline invitations from her "friends", pretty soon the invitations will stop, it doesn't seem to make any difference to her.

I've tried to discuss this with various friends/family in hopes to get some understanding or advice on handle her but so far the assvice I've gotten has ranged from she's just going through a phase, be glad she wants to spend time with her family because it's a matter of time before she starts "hating" us, to put our foot down and force her to do things because as an only child she is spoiled and we are letting her rule us.

I think it's probably a combination of things. Hormones - she's 10 1/2 and has for probably a over a year now has been having discharge in her panties and has to wear a pantyliner often, she's starting to get "bumps" on her chest, getting pimples, and she has most recently been crying at a drop of a hat. Articles I have read and discussions I've seen in many internet forums have been saying that many of our young girls are entering puberty earlier and earlier because of the hormones in our milk and chicken, etc. I think this a great possibility for her. Besides that, I started developing breasts by her age and started my period by 11 1/2.

Then there is the death of my sister this past July. I think Diane's death made her realize the mortality of her parents. She really hasn't talked about it but I truly think she's worrying constantly that something is going bad is going to happen to us. How do you tell a 10 year old not to worry about that? It's inevitable. With life there is death. Blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, I'm about to pull my hair out. I don't know how to deal with this without worrying that I am going about it the wrong way. I don't want to push her away but at the same time I don't want to ruin her by being to dependent upon us to where she can't do anything without us. Ya know?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Did anything happen when she went on that field trip? Did she get excluded or teased about anything? It seems suspect that this all started after that. Instead of making her go spend the night, maybe every other week or so she could have girls over to spend the night at your house? Just one or two? Not major slumber parties or anything...I don't know. I'm not looking forward to all this girlie drama at all. I remember it all too well, and I was considered one of the "popular" ones. It still totally sucked and even thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.

Slackermommy said...

My suggestion is to ask her more specific questions about why in particular questions about whether another child or adult touched her inappropriately. My oldest began withdrawing which was very unlike her. Turned out that her female cousin who is only 15 months older was molesting her. She kept it to herself out of fear of getting the cousin in trouble.

Most likely this is not your daughter's issue but it is a possibility. I recommend taking her to a child therapist. You may be seeing early signs of depression. Even if what is going on with her is just hormonal seeing a therapist won't do any harm.

sltbee69 said...

I've asked her more than once if anything bad happened on that trip. She keeps telling me no and that the worse was that the other girls in the room kept talking and she just wanted to go to bed. I really need to get to the bottom of this though. There have been a couple of "incidents" within the last 6-9 months that has me wondering if something "sexually" has happened to her. Thanks Tamberlyn and Kristie!

Lollipop Goldstein said...

It's so incredibly hard. And I think at that age, it's so hard for them to verbalize these enormous feelings. I don't have assvice--just sympathy.

Would love to take you up on your offer to help with the blogroll sweep. Send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) so I can send you your assignment once I get everyone spread out on the list. Thank you!

Lisa said...

I second Tamberlyn and Kristie. Plus, I think you are right about your sister's death affecting her.

My heart is with you and I hope you get to the bottom of things soon.