“But she seems completely fine. “
This sentence, regularly uttered by friends and even family who have neuro-typical children, makes me want to tear my hair out. To put this in context, our nearest relative is over 100 miles away; nearest friends over 200. They have not been in extensive contact with my daughter. The longest has been a few hours here and there, and never overnight.
Last month, my father died. It was not out of the blue, but much sooner than we were told to expect. It is also the reason for my month of radio silence. This has blown any semblance of routine or normality to hell. For the most part our fae has managed like a trouper, doing everything she could to cope with and even enjoy the change.
However, doing so completely used up all her spoons: she is no longer sleeping as well as she was; she has pushed every boundary and every button we have. I know, and have been told dismissively, that “all children do this” but there is a distinct difference between a meltdown and a tantrum. My normally balanced and well-mannered fae child is melting down multiple times a day. I haven’t yet braved the back to school shop (she goes back Wednesday) nor given a thought to checking what parts of her uniform still fits (I’m assuming none of it).
Two weeks ago was my father’s funeral. It was on a Thursday. Because we had already planned our summer out, my husband’s leave was all spent. So, after some thought, the only way we could make it work was to go down on a Sunday and return on a Saturday: this way he could spend the week working, remotely, from my mother’s house; and our fae wouldn’t be faced with three days of uproar as we drove down; attended a funeral; then drove straight back again. We chose to stay in a ‘luxury’ hotel to try and minimise problems.
This was our first mistake.
The hotel, despite being 4*, was having boiler issues (for 3 days) so the room was over heated but there was no hot water – a problem for a child who expects a bath every night before bed. Having asked about it, and pointed out that our daughter was not sleeping – both because of this insanity, and having been put on a pull-out sofa rather than a bed (despite us paying for the bed!) – they conceded to moving our room. Which helped with the heat if not the water.
If people ever ask again if routine is really that important to our fae, we can just point out that she preferred to have her evening bath in cold water, rather than breaking routine enough to go without.
During the days, I was often able to meet up with my brother and his family. She loves her cousin, and they went swimming, and to an outdoor play centre together, and had a great time. Despite being only 5, she walked 5 miles without complaint with only a bag of crisps to eat – as none of the other food was something she could/would eat – and never once lost her smile. All this with no sleep and no warm bath. She held it together throughout the funeral, and never made a sound: she was good as gold (none of this seemed strange to anyone?). She held it all together right up until we were home alone.
And then for the next week she screamed, cried at nothing, and for the first time tried to pinch me. She asked to be taken to places and then complained that we took her to them. She began demanding we take her to “her blue house” and even struck out in search of it on her own. To clarify: Her “blue house” is where, amongst others, our only child insists her brother and sister live – along with her unicorn. Her sudden insistence that she can walk to an imaginary place has given us more cause for concern than we’d really like right now.
She has never before thrown herself on the floor screaming in a supermarket, but she has now. She masked for the entire week and spent every last ounce of her control coping in a strange environment. The moment we were back in her safe space, she broke down.
As cruel as it may sound, we haven’t budged on our boundaries with her. Her bedtime hasn’t moved; she still has her dinner, bath, books and bed. She still isn’t allowed to eat crisps for breakfast, and no matter how hard she pushes, she is not allowed to run away in shops. This is not to be draconian: it’s for her benefit. She is pushing to make sure the boundaries are where she thinks they are. If they have moved, she’ll feel like we’ve cut her adrift just when she needed us most. So, while I really don’t feel like it, and both my husband and myself are beyond exhausted, stressed and (in my case) popping anti-depressants like they’re candy: we are still holding the wall. It needs to happen.
I managed to arrange meetups for her with both her childminder and, most importantly, her other neuro-spicy friends. She is finally relaxing back into her home life, and being assured that everything is where it’s supposed to be. It’s taken a week.
Two days ago she told me she wanted to go on holiday again. I almost broke down in hysterics.
Raising the Modern Fae 