At the beginning of the year, I noticed that Harrison started acting differently. It was as if a flip had switched and suddenly he was apologizing for every move he made. Not just the typical things you’d expect a six year old to apologize for - hurting someone, breaking something, etc. - but instead it was for everything.
I’m sorry I touched your foot.
I’m sorry I made that noise.
I’m sorry I I left my shoes on the floor.
I’m sorry I had toothpaste on my mouth.
I’m sorry I ate so much.
I’m sorry I got that word wrong.
I’m sorry I asked that over and over.
And on and on and on. Without exaggeration, I believe we heard him apologize around fifty times in a day. We thought this was a short lived phase, one that we didn’t know where it was coming from, but that would end pretty quickly.
But it’s two months later and he’s still doing it, just in different ways.
I talked with him, telling him that he didn’t need to say sorry so much, that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, that he is okay to just be. So he stopped saying “sorry”, but it has morphed into a new way of saying the same thing…
Is it okay that I touched your foot?
Is it okay that I made that noise?
Is it okay that I left my shoes on the floor?
Is it okay that I had toothpaste on my mouth?
You get the drift. It’s the same questioning idea, but arranged in a different way.
And I just can’t figure out what has happened to cause the change. Harrison used to be one of the most confident kids you’d ever meet. He knew he was smart and funny and handsome. But suddenly that confident boy has been replaced with someone who is questioning his every move, and honestly it’s heartbreaking to watch.
I don’t want him to question existing.
Nearly every night I talk to him about it, asking him if he’s upset about something, asking if he thinks we’re going to be upset with him, asking him why he feels like he has to apologize. And he doesn’t know. He just says that he doesn’t know if he’s doing the right thing.
I’m wondering if it’s kindergarten and the massive change that is to his life. And also because I know that he regularly gets reprimanded in school because he talks a lot. Is getting reprimanded causing him to question all of the other choices he’s making in his day?
Finally this week I talked with his teacher and his guidance counselor at school. Neither of them have noticed anything different about him or the anxiousness he seems to be feeling. They say he seems to interact just as normal with his friends at school, and the same as other people his age. The guidance counselor talked to him and he told her he wasn’t worried or upset about anything.
So then, is it something at home? Is he worried about disappointing us? Are we not showing him enough that he’s doing a great job?
I have no doubt, like all things with kids, that this is just a phase. But even so, it’s one that I’m not quite sure how to navigate. Thankfully with suggestions from both the counselor as well as my best friend who works with kids, we’ve gotten some good tips to help him through this phase.
But I’m curious if any of your kids have gone through this? How do you handle it when suddenly your kids are less confident and more filled with anxiety?
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As a principal I saw this often with kiddos. Parents would report behavior at home that we didn't see at school. I knew parent reports were accurate and their concern was genuine. So what could we do? With my student support team, we advised parents to shift the focus from worried questions to asking their child all the things that were great about the day. Questions needed to be specific. What did you learn in math (or any subject) today? Or, who did you play with at recess, what did you play? My favorite questions every day for my grandson were What did you learn? and Who did you help? His answers to the second one were always my favorite. :-) It occurs to me that you could ask another question - Who helped you? It reminds kiddos that it's okay to ask for or need help. :-)
This sounds hard to navigate. I had two kids with anxiety but it didn’t look like this. Is he acting less confident/anxious in other ways too? Like not wanting to go places or see friends or other things? Could he be enjoying the attention that he’s getting from this? Or could he be practicing *care*? It sounds so much like checking for consent…maybe he sees someone else acting this way and is trying it out? I pose all of these questions because he says nothing is wrong.
I’m sorry I don’t have practical advice/experience with this and can’t be more helpful.