Wading Into Uncharted Waters

Secunda is nine, and more and more frequently, I am noticing that she seems downcast and quiet; withdrawn, even. And I hate to admit this, but I'm a bit at a loss in how to help her deal with it.

See, when I was nine, I was in my third school in as many years, thrust into an academic pilot program designed to separate out the top 24 students in the school district, place them all in one classroom and watch as the magic ostensibly happened. I was also two years out from being physically and mentally abused by my Grade 2 teacher, and fresh out of a year of bullying at the hands of my classroom peers. So I really don't have the personal frame of reference for this.

When Hubby was nine, he and his family were moving cross-country while his parents changed career paths. Big changes there. Likewise, he was going to his third school in as many years. Adding to that the fact that he is not in possession of a uterus, and it gets difficult to relate.

What I do have is a deep and abiding love for my child, and a strong desire to help her successfully navigate her way through adolescence.


Now, our daughter has a lot going for her. She is loving, caring and considerate, she has many friends (and one best friend), she is highly intelligent (designated gifted at school, but remains in her regular classroom, as they found the pilot project didn't work out so well). She is attractive and well-spoken. She has a lot of potential to have a good and relatively easy life, surrounded by friends and loved ones. The world really is her oyster.

And still, she is unsure of herself, shy, anxious at times, and sometimes seems to be on the verge of tears for no discernible reason. And I'm fumbling, and feel like I'm failing her.

This was not in the manual.

What I'm trying to do is to cultivate an environment of total acceptance and safety, a place where she feels comfortable telling us what's on her mind. I want so much for us to have the close relationship that I enjoyed with my own mother at that age, and I think I'm doing okay with that part of it. But I don't know how to deal with mood swings/fluctuations that aren't due to some external stressor at that age.

Tonight, we had her up after the others had gone to bed, and I had the chance to just sit on the couch and have a snuggle with her, to ask her how she's feeling, and to share with her my observation that I could tell that something was going on for her emotionally, even if she didn't quite know what it was, or how to talk about it. I guessed that since she couldn't pinpoint an initial event that might have sparked feeling low, it might be due to hormonal fluctuations. And we have prepared her. We have talked, and we were lent a wonderful book that covers the basics of what to expect in the next few years, and this book sparked a number of really great talks. And we felt it was important that Secunda have the information she is asking for, and in an age-appropriate way. After all, I was 10 when I had my first cycle; my mother was 8. So, we knew this might be coming, and really, any day. Well, *that* hasn't begun yet, but it makes sense to me that the hormones precede the body function by a number of months before we have to worry about the logistics of getting into the bathroom with what you need before you're old enough to carry a purse at school. I don't even remember how I did that...

I suppose all of this rambling is just me thinking out loud, so to speak. Maybe I was hoping that by typing it all out, I could better determine if I was meeting her needs, or if there was a gap somewhere.

God, I hope I'm doing this right.