People have asked me when I first noticed that my daughter pulling her hair. The following is the story that I share.
March was a crazy month. Lila was in full swing in her 3rd
grade year and struggling with some girl drama at school. She was very stressed by the power struggles
among her friends and was coming home crying quite often. I was in the process of trying to finalize a
contracting agreement and launch a big technology initiative with multiple
organizations in the state. I was
preparing for a conference the first week of April which would then be followed
by my 50th birthday and Lila’s 9th birthday. My birthday celebration was a trip to
Mazatlan Mexico with a few close girlfriends.
We were both excited about our celebration month and there were lots of
talks of planning.
One day as Lila was getting ready for bed, she began her
usual download of the days challenges and noteworthy events. Her voice was filled with emotion and
excitement. She was describing how the little girl in
school, who she repeatedly had problems with, was teasing her about a small
mole that she had at her hair line. She
was in the bathroom and I was in the kitchen listening trying to keep calm and
not get frustrated at this little girl harassing my daughter and Lila
continuing to be drawn to her like a moth to a flame. As I am working in the kitchen and feeding
the dogs, I realized that Lila had been very quiet in the bathroom for several
minutes. I stuck my head in to see what
she was doing and saw her staring closely at herself in the mirror. She was looking at her mole that she had now
made very red. I didn’t notice it right
away but as I looked closer I realized that she had pulled the hair around the
mole out entirely leaving a splotchy area on her forehead and making the mole
even more noticeable. She was upset as
she realized that her picking it did not make it disappear. I pulled her hands away from her forehead and
told her that it picking a mole, and anything for that matter was always going
to make it worse. My little speech had
become a mantra with Lila as for as long as I could remember she had the
tendency to scratch excessively at itches and pay very close attention to the
little scratches, splotches, bumps and bruises.
“Let it be” I would always say. “Let your body heal it”. “Its going to be fine”, “Scratching is going
to make it worse” and on and on. Lila
was always disappointed that I didn’t share her fascination with her scratch,
itch, blotch etc. “You don’t care” she
would declare. “You aren’t even helping me”, she would proclaim as I limited my
attention to providing her a bandaid for the imaginary scratch and/or the cream
for the sensitive blotchy area.
For most with young children, my story is in no way
unique. What may be a bit noteworthy,
however, is that as a single working mom, I probably was slightly less doting
on the little wounds and as a very sensitive child, Lila was slightly more astute
to the minor scratch.
“Stop playing with your mole and love yourself for who you
are. You have a beautiful face and that little black dot is part of what makes
you uniquely you. If your friends are
teasing you about it, then they are probably not your friend. Stay away from
her and play with some of the nicer girls.” And that was it. Looking back, I had no idea that that was
the beginning of what would be a traumatic experience for us both.
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