My daughter is a 6 year old level 3. She has been on team for 9 months and is nearly done with her second competition season and doing great. She absolutely loves it. Her team practices 3 days a week, 3 hours at a time and she is very well adjusted to it. When she first started she wanted me to stay for the whole practice. Since it was new and she was 5 years old I did. After a few weeks I started to leave for about an hour in the beginning and run and errand or something then would come back for the remaining time. She was reluctant but knew I would be back soon so did not seem to be too upset. Over a couple weeks I worked up to leaving for 2 hours and then coming back for the last hour and have been doing that ever since and she has been fine. No tears but definitely lights up when she sees me come back.
All of a sudden about 2 weeks ago as I was about to leave as usual and was talking to someone and she ran out of warm ups and came crying to me saying she did not want me to leave. She seemed very anxious about it so I agreed to stay for that time. After practice I asked her if what was bothering her, was she scared of a skill, was someone being mean, was she not feeling well, etc and all I got was no. She has no problem going to school and has been "off track" (year round school) for 3 weeks so she hasn't even been at school for anything to have happened there. Literally there has been no change in any situation at home or unsettled situations in her life so I'm boggled. So we talked about how she can't do that every practice. Long story short, 2 weeks later it is still happening. I leave even if I see her crying during warm up stretching just so she doesn't think she can do that to make me stay, but have just been going for about an hour and going back. Once she ran OUT of the doors to the parking lot crying for me to stay. Of course, we talked about that being dangerous and never leaving the gym. After I leave I have called another parent that is there and the tell me she is still crying like 20 minutes later. She is fine by the time I get back though. I don't like to leave her crying and I am worried the coaches are going to grow tired of it but I also don't want to think crying will get me to stay all the time, nor do I really want to be there 9 hrs a week.
I'm just not sure why she has regressed after she was fine with me being gone for most of the time. Has this happened to anyone else's child? I thought maybe giving her a "buddy" to be stay by or getting a hug from one of the older girls she looks up to would help but she says no. She says she feels more comfortable when I am there and sometimes she "just needs s hug from mommy" during the breaks. In talking to her I know her emotional reactions during conversations well enough to sense that she is frustrated with herself because she doesn't want to be doing this and is not sure why its happening. So if she has developed some anxiety without me being there I don't want to make that worse by being tough about the situation and telling her to "suck it up" in not so many words, but I also don't want to enable this behavior. She's doing great in meets and has no anxiety in meets, is placing really well in all events and is very proud of her accomplishments so I don't think its meet related. Any advice? Should I just ask the coaches to be patient as we work through this? Thank you for reading this looooooong post.
All of a sudden about 2 weeks ago as I was about to leave as usual and was talking to someone and she ran out of warm ups and came crying to me saying she did not want me to leave. She seemed very anxious about it so I agreed to stay for that time. After practice I asked her if what was bothering her, was she scared of a skill, was someone being mean, was she not feeling well, etc and all I got was no. She has no problem going to school and has been "off track" (year round school) for 3 weeks so she hasn't even been at school for anything to have happened there. Literally there has been no change in any situation at home or unsettled situations in her life so I'm boggled. So we talked about how she can't do that every practice. Long story short, 2 weeks later it is still happening. I leave even if I see her crying during warm up stretching just so she doesn't think she can do that to make me stay, but have just been going for about an hour and going back. Once she ran OUT of the doors to the parking lot crying for me to stay. Of course, we talked about that being dangerous and never leaving the gym. After I leave I have called another parent that is there and the tell me she is still crying like 20 minutes later. She is fine by the time I get back though. I don't like to leave her crying and I am worried the coaches are going to grow tired of it but I also don't want to think crying will get me to stay all the time, nor do I really want to be there 9 hrs a week.
I'm just not sure why she has regressed after she was fine with me being gone for most of the time. Has this happened to anyone else's child? I thought maybe giving her a "buddy" to be stay by or getting a hug from one of the older girls she looks up to would help but she says no. She says she feels more comfortable when I am there and sometimes she "just needs s hug from mommy" during the breaks. In talking to her I know her emotional reactions during conversations well enough to sense that she is frustrated with herself because she doesn't want to be doing this and is not sure why its happening. So if she has developed some anxiety without me being there I don't want to make that worse by being tough about the situation and telling her to "suck it up" in not so many words, but I also don't want to enable this behavior. She's doing great in meets and has no anxiety in meets, is placing really well in all events and is very proud of her accomplishments so I don't think its meet related. Any advice? Should I just ask the coaches to be patient as we work through this? Thank you for reading this looooooong post.