What Goes Around

When I was in third grade, I hit a period of separation anxiety. I did not want to go to school. I wanted to be home with my mother because I felt safe there and really school wasn't all it was cracked up to be. At the time I was thinking this would make my mother happy that I wanted to be with her. I would cry my way to the nurses' office and wait patiently to be picked up by Mame Hall ( my grandmother for all intents and purposes). Mame would give me a hard look, which I would shrug off and once I was home it was Price is Right and As The World Turns and some serious time reading all the Carolyn Haywood books I could get my dad to let me take out of the library. I did not realize then how much my mother probably agonized over what was wrong with me really. Why did I need to be home after being in school 3 years already?



Thursday morning last week couple weeks back , the oldest child ,who is now in first grade, decided that school is just not for him and for better or worse he decided to cry his way out of going on Thursday. I had to call the school and explain to the school nurse that I did not think he was sick, only that he was having some separation anxiety or perhaps that aliens had switched my child during the night, leaving something akin to an alien in my house. She doubted the alien story and told me she would alert his teacher. When the teacher called I explained that he was near hysterics and I wasn't sure what to do. "bring him in. It will only get worse if you let him have his way today.' I thought "He's all yours ,sister." But calmly said. "We'll be there in ten minutes." I should have realized it would take me that much time to peel him off the ceiling first.

I put his brother and sister in the car and went back into the house,knowing I would have to carry him out . and I couldn't find him. Our house is not that big. It is 2 floors so after searching downstairs I headed up. My patience was not thin at this point it was thread bare. I looked everywhere and the last place I looked, under our bed, there he was. He held on to the bed frame so tightly I had to literally peel his fingers off one by one. ( Something my husband found so amusing when I called until he had to peel the kid off the kitchen island the next morning.)

I did have to drag him out to the car and drag him into school , where his teacher and the Principal then dragged him down the hall. He was crying for me and holding his hands out like someone being dragged off to prison. All I could do was walk away. I cried all the way home.

He got off the bus with a smile on his face. His teacher emailed to say he did fine once he got to school, although it did take him awhile to settle down.

He pulled this for about two weeks, with MOnday beign the worst until one day he came off the bus smiling this big smile and I looked down at that swet face and said "You're done. If you cry tomorrow morning about going to school I am giving away your Nintendo and you will lose computer and TV priviledges for a week." His smile faded quickly. He nodded his head and said "Okay mama I promise."

He has kept his promise.

Now I have an idea of how awful I probably made my mother feel. I am sure she forgave me or perhaps never felt the need to forgive me. As a mother you don't hold that kind of grudge. I think I played it harder than my mother did, though. I am thinking my father might have stepped in to stop my own tantrums about going to school. I am thinking if my mother had had more leverage....thank goodness for Nintendo.