When Your Child Won’t Tell You What’s Wrong

 

by Dana Talusani of The Kitchen Witch

I know this won’t last.

My daughter is the only second grader who still flings herself at her waiting parents. Other kids smile, other kids give a little wave of recognition, others dawdle a few more minutes to chat with a friend.  Miss M. catches air, crashing into my chest, nearly bowling me over.  Like a puppy, she’s uncontrolled and completely unaware that her enthusiasm isn’t the norm.  Her pleasure at going home exceeds any thread of social boundary or self-consciousness.

It won’t last.

I know that.

And it pierces through my joy at seeing her, a hard and sharp reminder that I’m on borrowed time. Greetings aren’t simply joyous anymore; there are shadows now. Shadows in the background that I can see coming, shadows that fill me with loss and yearning, because even as I welcome her back home, I’m mourning the loss of her.

There’s a part of my daughter that she wants to keep from me. She has secrets that she keeps carefully in her corners–corners that I’m not invited into.

Being uninvited sucks and it hurts and it makes me worry that she doesn’t trust me to react appropriately to what she’s saying. I’m not even being given the chance?

How can you help your kid when that door closes?

ABOUT DANA: Dana Talusani is a writer, blogger and mother of three. Her work has appeared on CNN.com, Today.com. ScaryMommy and The Huffington Post. She is currently working on her first novel. Dana blogs at The Kitchen Witch and can be found on Twitter.

 

 

 

CONTINUE READING IN THE FAMILY ROOM