This coming week my daughter is trying several new things. I am aware that new experiences are essential to growth and development and no child can live in a bubble without them. That said these are milestones that I am not happy about her facing right now.
Her school wants to take her on a residential trip. She is 7, this to me is young even for a neuro-typical child, especially one that has never slept out of the family home without a parent and for one that is divergent and is statemented as delayed way too soon. When I voiced my concerns to her teachers they looked at me as though I was insane and in the end I had to break it down to the point where I had to explain the whole of her night time routine to them (see previous post).
Add to that she would be expected to eat strange foods, shower herself and have limited supervision at night when I know she will get anxious and go wondering and a compromise needed to be found. So I have agreed that she will attend during the days and we will collect her each night after my husband finishes work so she can still have her evening routine with us. We are fortunate that the outdoor pursuit site she is visiting is around a 20 minute drive.
To try and get her ready for sleeping out, away from us we are starting with stage one. We are going to a hotel this weekend for one night. Another source of anxiety for me, it wasn’t planned that these two event would happen in the same week it was how the cards fell. I am concerned that this is not something that will go well. We have one room for the three of us, I am not convinced the hotel will give her an actual bed. Hell I don’t sleep in a bed when I had to share with my husband in the past so this is already looking like it will be stressful. I don’t like feeling like we are setting her up for failure but she needs new experiences and who knows she may love it.
So now I’m not sleeping because I’m anxious about the weekend going badly and I’m anxious about the school trip. I’m not convinced this week is going to be easy and the last time we were away from home it took a month for her to regulate when we returned so I’m not looking forward to that either.
Oh and Summer holiday is looming like the demon of Christmas future.
Can it be September again?
Raising the Modern Fae 