Usually I'm all for pretending and the fun things that come from imagination. Our house has always been full of imaginary friends and fun adventures that come with the make believe. Needless to say I enjoy playing the pretend game as much as any kid does.
But, I have recently been schooled on another kind of pretend that is not so fun.
My normal morning routine with my kindergartener was interrupted by being informed that she had a headache, and just wanted to go back to bed. At first I was the tough mom and said, " You'll be fine after breakfast, so you better hurry." I made her get all dressed and sent her upstairs to keep the morning going as planned. At the same time in the back of my mind I was worried with all the sickness going around our house I wanted to believe her. My son and I had been recently sick and I was hoping that I had kept her far enough away that she wouldn’t get it from here. But she is in school and the flu is going around in our small town, with several speculations of the severity and what kind of flu is in the mix. So I got out the thermometer and gave her some pain killers/fever reducers, you know just in case. But as the morning progressed it was apparent that it was all a rouse. Sigh!! So as any good mom my plan was to show her that staying home from school wasn't the FUN thing to do. With a plan that she is not allowed out of her room unless she needs to use the bathroom and to eat, the day has gone on. During lunch I figured I’d try to get to the bottom of the reason why she wanted to stay at home. Her only answer was, "I really miss my family". By now I'm not really buying that. We have recently put together a plan to help her behavior at school; it included incentives that when a whole 5 days of requirements are met she will receive a special prize (To be determined later). I wondered if this was causing her stress, enough to not want to go to school. With further investigation I’m still at a loss.
I guess this is what they mean by the first child being the practice one. I'm sure that every mother has had this situation at least once in their lives. I guess my mom did such a good job at it, because I can't remember it happening for me. Oh well, I’ll chalk it up to another thing for the new mom to learn. I'm sure in 20 yrs it will be a laughing matter.
So I’m looking forward to when the pretend game doesn’t end up with the child stuck in her room for a whole day.
3 comments:
I'm sorry! I hear that it happens to everyone, my niece did it the other day and my sister in law made her work all day. It worked well for her!
Hey! Thanks for commenting on my blog- I didn't know that you had a blog- but now I've added you to the list, and now I've subscribed to you. Hooray!
I have trouble figuring out when they are really sick and when they are playing possum. I'm on my second and I've got a few things figured out but I'm still learning too. Hang in there! :)
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