Change is Hard

My daughter’s first day of school yesterday went without incident—at the time.   After she came home it was a different story, including and into today.   It’s largely due to change for one small person all at once.   My daughter’s situation isn’t any more unique than any other child who finds themselves in a new school, a new classroom, a new city, with a new sitter or in a new house.   Change can be tough to adapt to.  

As adults we’ve had our nose rubbed in so much change we’re used to it.   We may not like it but we understand it’s how life is.   A child doesn’t have the breadth of experience and has no control most if not all of the change and process associated with it.    And that lack of control can manifest itself in erratic behavior.

My daughter was very happy about her first day and then once she got home and was back in her normal home environment she became exceptionally irritable, atypically whiny and even threw in a temper tantrum of lengthy proportion to try and manage the chaos going through her mind.

This morning she wasn’t in any better mood and had to be taken back upstairs because not only was she being whiny, she was being completely irrational.   A child, irrational, you ask in a completely sarcastic tone?   This was just not her, not my daughter, not her even-tempered self.

What she’s going through is common, expected almost—we’ve been told by our teachers in prior years to not be surprised if it takes weeks to get adjusted to the new school year and routine.   We’ll see how my son adjusts to his new classroom and teachers when he starts school at the end of August.

The Big Boy Update:  I had finished reading a book last night and had turned out the light.   Typically I climb the steps up to his bunk to give him a hug and a kiss.   Last night he said, “I’ll pass”.    So I squeezed his hand and went to the bottom bunk to see if I could help his sister who had just finished a pretty atypical and protracted tantrum.   Maybe he figured she needed a hug more than he did right then.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked me, “what does p-n-s spell?”  I told her it sounded like ‘penis’.   She then said, “that’s not a good word.   I think you should only say it when you’re on the toilet with the door shut.”   (Interesting, because she and her brother have been saying that word in an anatomical sense since they were quite tiny.)