Rough morning here. Teddy seemed off last night, crying at everything, yelling at the dog for looking at him wrong…you know those nights. But, it’s the end of the week and he was out of school all last week with Covid so we figured he was just a little overwhelmed. But this morning, instead of running downstairs excited to go to school like he normally does, he immediately burst into tears (those big crocodile tears that silently fall while the lip quivers 😢). He just kept saying he didn’t want to go to school because he was scared. We finally got him calmed down enough to tell us that a bunch of girls called him a “mean boy” on the playground yesterday because he was on the swings first and wouldn’t get off when they told him to. The worst part was that the leader of this group was his friend from down the street. Now, I know the backstory of this girl, her parents are going through a nasty divorce, her dad is a raging alcoholic, and she’s been acting out all summer. But that’s impossible to explain to any 7 year old, let alone one who has difficulty processing and communicating. All he knows is that his friend called him a name when he didn’t do anything wrong. My husband and I talked about it, going back and forth on do we force him to go to school while he’s this upset because he has to learn to stand up to bullies and not hide from the hard things? Or do we give him some grace and let him work through his feelings on his own today at home? We decided to keep him home. We know that other kids have said things to him before, he gets called weird a lot, but he usually lets those go without even a hiccup. This one obviously hurt him deeply, though, and we have to show him that we’re a safe space for him to share his feelings without punishment. With how upset he was this morning, forcing him to go to school would definitely be a punishment. Plus he said his heart is sick and how do you not break down at that?!

Posted by Meghan at 2022-09-30 11:57:36 UTC