Over the summer, our sweet Veronika was fully potty trained and she started off Kindergarten Jumpstart (a program to let kids get a taste of kindergarten for a couple of weeks before school actually starts) on a high note.
By the end of November she was having accidents every single day at school (but not at home) and had broken her glasses about 20+ times. (she had them for 3 years before school ever started with no problems at all).
Fast forward to December and something had changed. She was no longer looking forward to going to school and in fact had not been eating lunch for a week. I asked the teacher what was going on and was told they did not know. My sweet girl who had loved having lunch in the lunch room and playing outside, would now fall onto the floor curled up and scream about 3 feet from the lunchroom door, protesting that she didnt want to go in to the lunch room, didnt want to go outside.
I went the next week and got to witness this first hand. While Veronika has always had anxiety, this was the worst I had ever seen it. She was terrified! I hoped that me being there would help, but you could tell she was still nervous about whatever was bothering her. Outside was just as bad with her not wanting to leave my side. The following week my husband went with her to lunch and he got to see it as well.
We are not sure what happened. Kindergarten-3rd grade eats together then goes outside to play for recess. Did an older kid accidentally knock her down and then get scared and run off because she started crying? Did she fall and get hurt but with the noise no one noticed? Did someone bump into her and with her being so small she got trampled on??
Whatever the problem was, it was not getting better, only worse. When she stopped begging to go to school and started begging to stay home with mommy we knew we could not keep sending her to school.
Gavyn will finish this school year of preschool and then be homeschooled as well. But for now he will finish his preschool year. Our other kids will be staying in public school and are loving it.
Veronika and Gavyn will be able to participate in intensive PT, OT, and Speech with not being in public school as well as enjoy a lot of other activities that they are currently not able to do now due to their school schedule.
We were hopeful with the public school option for Veronika, and I must say the kids really welcomed her and loved her being in school. The teacher seemed to like Veronika as well, but we just can not send her to school when something clearly happened and she is not able to express what it was that happened and her anxiety has just gotten worse. She also has had some issues with the way certain things are taught. Some things she needs to work on are not being worked on and she is missing out on some of the things she needs to focus on (things she knew before school started but since they have not worked on since then she has now forgotten).
We are looking forward to once again getting back into homeschooling and if today was any indication, she is going to do great!!!
