Today I watched Daisy at her Tutu Camp. The teacher said, "Everyone go to a pink dot against the wall!" Daisy was right in front of a pink dot, and closer to the wall than a lot of the other girls, but she moved so slowly and so tentatively that she didn't get a dot. Other girls squeezed in behind her, pushed her aside, etc. And she moved so slowly and like she was giving it so much thought that she couldn't get to another dot. Later the teacher told her to go over and say goodbye to me, and she did, but she was jumping out of her skin with anxiety to get back to the wall, repeatedly saying, “I need to get back before I lose my space!”
I have seen this paradigm with Daisy time and time again. If any kind of line forms, she is always last. And by always, I mean always. I don’t even know that I would have a problem with this, but it clearly bothers her and makes her somewhat anxious and cranky.
The worst time was when I saw her trying to play Tag with a few friends. She couldn’t tag any of them, so she was perpetually “It.” The problems were manifold: she moved slowly, she stood thinking for too long, and when another girl came within range of her, she reached out too weakly and tentatively to tag her. One of her kind friends eventually allowed herself to be tagged so that Daisy could stop being It, but another girl kind of had fun with her—deliberately running close, then gleefully swooping away, confident in her utter safeness from being tagged by Daisy.
The whole thing was painful for me, and it was difficult to separate my own pain from what Daisy might be feeling. She clearly grew frustrated with being It, but she wanted to continue playing--that was a bright side. All in all, I am sure I was more upset than she was. But I have to say I dread the years to come, the things she's going to have to face unless something changes (which I can't imagine it will, at least not by very much). It's not that I want her to be aggressive; I would just like her not to be last every time and not to perpetually experience being trampled by other kids.
Yeah, I know... no one ever said this parenting thing would be easy.
