Routine, routine, routine…God help us if we don’t have the same routine. To many people if your daily routine changes it’s relatively easy to adapt. For many children a slight modification in the day usually doesn’t put them on the brink of tears. Well, for Sydney a change in routine can be catastrophic, kind of like today.

I am the one that takes the kids to school, day in, day out. My kids don’t even get a chance to see their father in the morning. So it comes to reason that for a child suffering from social anxiety if all of the sudden one morning Dad takes her in instead of Mom, you can expect anything from tears to grabbing of body parts to the exact opposite behaviour a smile and a wave. One never really knows what to expect and that’s why I’d love to know what’s in her head.

Not so much these days but just months ago the weekends would bring on the strangest behaviour. The tears, the crying, the unexplainable moodiness would emerge when the weekend should bring out happiness. Let’s face it sleeping in (for all of us), no focus on homework (usually done Friday night, if we’re super organized or Sunday night, if we just couldn’t get it together). But for our family the weekend usually translated into tears, arguing over tears and a general bad mood for the whole family. We one day realized that this behaviour is not abnormal; in fact it’s quite normal for SAD children. All week long we thrive on getting up at a certain time, eating at a certain time and pace, coming and going like clockwork. The weekends however are completely structured differently and Daddy’s home. The anxiety? If Daddy’s home that means Mommy might go out, if we’re home someone might come over and I don’t want anyone over, I don’t want to go anywhere, what time is lunch if we just had breakfast? well, you get my point.

So back to this morning. We all walked to school today including Dad, but I was going on a fieldtrip with Ehren and I had to follow him into the classroom. Dave had to stay with Sydney and help to get her settled. At this point I’m still going in every day with the class in order to help ease the transition so I wrote a play by play so that Dave would know EXACTLY what to do. As he stood in line holding Sydney’s hand, the bell rang and I gave her a kiss on the cheek and wished them the best. How bad could it be? really?

Oh I should mention that even before we got into the line the tears started flowing. I think a combination of still battling the cold and the stress of being away the first two days this week on top of the blasted “change in routine” and we had misery. Dave dropped her off and did everything that was listed on the “Daddy’s instructions”. He saw first hand what I deal with every morning. Today was the Terry Fox run so to add insult to injury she had her most hated class which is gym but today it was outside, running around the school with all 841 students. Yikes!

I had mentioned to Dave in the morning that he should probably ask if they’d like him to come back just to be an extra hand if Syd is really freaked out and they were very appreciative. Thank God he was there. Sydney did not put on the jersey that identified her class, she did not want to get her picture taken, she did not walk around the school and all that happened were a lot of tears.

School let out at the end of the day and Sydney ran out and greeted me with open arms. Positive – she wasn’t holding the teachers hand and she was midway through the line up. Positive – she didn’t want to leave right away so she sat back down in the line-up and played rock, paper, scissors with a friend. Negative – after we decided to go to the play structure and I walked over to one of the mom’s and Sydney stood beside me for a moment and then abruptly began to leave the school yard. I called her name and asked that she come back and she started walking away faster. I panicked and picked up my pace and she began to run away from me. She has never ever done that in her 6 years of life and I can honestly say that it just about killed me. What the hell am I going to do if she walks too far or into traffic or…good God. I called her again and said, “We can go home but just let me get Ehren and his bag. Sydney come back please.” Luckily, she stopped dead in her tracks and started to ball. I caught up to her and hugged her and told her that we could go but she just needed to tell me her intentions before she bolted out of the park. We came back to where I had dropped Ehren’s bag and  apologized to the mom for the abrupt exit. I called Ehren over and the three of us walked home. Just before getting home in her little voice she said, “I’m so sorry for running away from you”.

Not more than 15 minutes later, while the kids were playing in the driveway our next door neighbour asked, “So Sydney did you have a good day at school today?” and do you know what her reply was? “Yup, I had a good day today!” WHAT? How can that be? You cried in the morning, you didn’t participate in the Terry Fox run, you ran away from me in the school yard and yet you’re saying you had a good day. Of course all of this was muttered in my head, not out loud.

In reality I guess she did have a good day because despite and all the set backs we have to look at the accomplishments in the eyes of a 6 year old with social anxiety.

I did cry this morning but I stayed in school and I got through the morning even though it wasn’t the way it usually is.

I did not participate in the Terry Fox run but at least I was there and watched everyone else.

I played with my friend after school.

I talked to my teacher today.

I finished this week of school and now it’s the weekend.

I’m home now and everything is okay.

So in the grand scheme of things she did have a good day because she made it through in light of tears, laughter and anxiety she did it but I would still love to know what’s in her head! Maybe one day she’ll enlighten me but until then Sydney is like Pandora’s box – she holds hope inside of her. 

“Only one good thing came to man in the jar and remains to comfort him in his distress, and that is the spirit of Hope.” http://www.geocities.com/una_sorella/stories/pandora.htm