Elly's "horrible day"

After school today, Eliana and I were sitting down and the teacher approached us to tell me Eliana was having a hard time listening. One event in particular had been upsetting to everyone involved, as a little girl's feelings were hurt and Elly felt very guilty about it. (I get the feeling the teacher likes to tell parents anything about the school day that she is afraid the child will report back on - from the child's perspective - to pre-empt the parent wondering what the heck this is all about. It does not feel like tattling, or "what are YOU going to do to make your kid behave better" as was an experience I had with one of Elly's pre-K teachers.) Anyway, after the teacher told the story, Elly put her head down on the table on her arms and said, "I had a horrible day!"

The horrible day continued after school, as Eliana just fell apart at everything all afternoon, either by exploding into anger or tears at me or Kes, anytime she didn't get her way. Not the usual Eliana intensity, far more than that. I get the feeling that she is 1) low on sleep and 2) having a hard time adjusting to kindergarten despite loving it there. (I asked her tonight, "I know you had a bad day today, but all the other days have you liked kindergarten or not?" and she said she did.) Kes has been having a hard time getting to sleep some nights and we usually approach that by waiting for her to fall asleep and then sending Elly to bed. With 8:15 am kindergarten, that may not have been the greatest idea. It will work better once she starts the 9:35 staggered schedule. Anyway, it was a refrain I heard all afternoon: "I'm having a horrible day!" Whenever we talked about it, she seemed to understand without my help that it was her own issue - that people were not doing things to her, just that she was unable to cope and therefore very sad about things that would not bother her as much, and that she was also having a rough day by not listening and therefore having negative interactions with her teacher and me.

So, I put her to bed a half hour before her usual bedtime (which hasn't been upheld due to Kessa's issues) and I'm hoping she'll fall asleep soon, and that tomorrow will be a better day - for everyone.