When you can't take away the hurt

I have said it many times before: The hardest part of being a parent is seeing your child hurt. Physically or emotionally, doesn't matter. It hurts. I hurt when they hurt.

And I hurt now for my daughter. In the past few months, I watched a confident, fiesty little girl whither away into an insecure, sad shell of herself.

It didn't happen overnight, it was a slow process and it wasn't until she told me she didn't ever want to go to school again, I realized there was a real problem.

She was being excluded in her class and not able to fit into a group. I guess i was blind to what was happening because she had always been such a social butterfly, the kid in the class everyone got along with. 

And actually, by having these qualities, she was separated from her group of friends this year and placed in a new class. 

Her kindergarten teacher said they had to split the group up in order to assure equal class numbers in the first grade. However, my daughter was the only girl in the group to be separated. 

We confronted the teacher last year and begged to keep her in the class with her friends. But the teacher said she was sociable and easy to get along so because of these qualities she would easily make new friends.

And here we are, my baby girl is an insecure and unhappy little person hurting every day at school when she can not find anyone to play with. Her new teacher is aware and has tried inclusion, but my daughter continues to be left out. We have invited kids over and had playdates but she still feels no connection.

I can not tell you how helpless I feel at this moment. I want to tell her class how cool she is, how much fun she is and they would be lucky to have a friend like her. But I can't, I can only support her and wipe her tears away for now. 

My husband will have a meeting with the teacher next week and demand she be placed back in the class with her friends. He is so good at being our children's voice, advocate. And I give the hugs and love, and hope soon the hurt will go away. Fingers crossed, this too shall pass.