Alone in a Crowded Room

I saw a look on Emily's face this morning that I haven't seen for nearly two years. Last time I saw it, she was cowering in a school classroom. When she left school, I hoped and trusted that we'd never see that face again, but it's back. Her hunted wild animal look. Her frozen in panic look. Her red cheeked, misty eyed, desperate, trying so hard not to cry, someone please comfort me look.

I sat in the ballet waiting room, watching Emily's face. I could see her for virtually the whole two hours as the door was left open today. I sat there and cried when I was alone, and battled to hold back the tears as other parents arrived. I sat there and blamed myself. I blamed the school (but surely, two years down the line, it's time to stop blaming them). I blamed myself again, and Jon for good measure too. I blamed the ballet teacher. I blamed every child, parent or relative Emily knows or ever has known. I blamed everyone and everything in the world, except for Emily herself. She can't help the way she is - all I wanted to do was to rush in there, scoop her up, take her away, take her back home and never let her leave our sides again. I didn't, of course, because that's not the way we grown ups do things. We're supposed to be strong, and we're supposed to know better.

And what had caused our daughter to be so fearful and upset? Simply that she didn't have a close friend in the ballet class. She knows them all, of course. She's been with them for nearly two years now. But those she knew best and counted as "friends" have been seperated from her and put into the other group. She's starting from scratch again now. And she's finding it very hard to cope. Now, I thought we had made progress with Emily's confidence and shyness. In fact, I'm sure we had. Recently, however, several of her friendships have ended in unfortunate circumstances, which has knocked her confidence right back to square one again.

So, there was my seven and half year old, looking every inch the frightened five year old back in school again. Panic everytime the teacher issued an instruction. Mustn't get it wrong, mustn't be shown up, mustn't be noticed, not even for the right reasons. Never move first. Never do something nobody else is doing, even if you know you've got the moves right and they haven't. Fear when you have to find a partner. After all, who would want to be with you? Sit quietly during break time. Concentrate on your drink. Look busy, to hide the fact that you have nobody to sit with and nobody to talk to. Don't look anyone in the eyes, because you'll only see dislike and distaste in their eyes if you do look. Never start a conversation - what have you got to say that anyone would want to hear? And if they talk to you, just answer them as quickly and quietly as you can; get it over with so they can move onto the person they really want to talk to. You're not best friends with every child in this room, so obviously you're worthless.

You see, I know exactly what Emily was doing. And I know exacty how she felt. I know, becuase it's how I felt myself throughout my school and childhood years. When I'm uncomfortable in a group, I still have it down to a fine art, the pretending to be busy, pretending to be happy, answering brightly and nodding wisely when someone talks to me, whilst secretly hoping they'll go away so I don't have to think of something else to say. But you see, as an adult, I'm happy. My shyness doesn't bother me anymore, because I have everything in the world I need to be happy - my husband and my daughter. I know how to cope with the social events I dread, and I'm not remotely concerned by not being at the centre of a large, adoring crowd of friends. That's simply not my style. A long time ago, when my life was still ahead of me though, of course it bothered me. Immensely. So I over-compensated for it. I forced myself to be someone I wasn't when I left school, and I whizzed through relationships, often illicit ones, at an absolute rate of knots. Friendships too. I got on with pretending to be whatever society thought I should be. It wasn't until I met Jon that I was ever able to go back to being just me, and be happy.

But it bothers Emily - she still believes that she needs to be "popular". She thinks there's something wrong with her because she doesn't have dozens of friends....because after all, everyone else has, and it's that lack of self-esteem that prevents her from making dozens of friends. Vicious circle. I know she has a long and painful road to travel and my heart bleeds for her. I read around the blog ring, marvelling at all of you with your happy children with endless friends and hectic social lives. Sometimes I wonder if you realise how fortunate you are not to have to worry about "the socialisation thing". I wasn't going to make this post. After all, it's a sign of utter failure, isn't it, to have to admit that your child is unhappy about something or not handling something well. We home educators are supposed to be shiny, happy beacons of all that's perfect with the world. What rubbish parents Jon and I must be. But I don't believe in painting false pictures and glossing over the bits that hurt, so I'm posting what I feel.

To those of you reading who disagreed with our decision to home educate in the first place: I guess you think now is a good time to laugh in our face and spout the "I told you so's", huh? After all, Emily needs to be around other children, lots of other children, for as many hours as possible every day, right? She needs to have this shyness knocked out of her, doesn't she? She needs to stop being the beautiful, sensitive, thoughtful child she is, to stop showing her emotions, and to start subduing her feelings so she can "fit in", yes? Well, before you spout off, just remember this. I went to school. Every last miserable day of it. And it "helped" me not one jot. If anything, it made me worse. I do know what I'm talking about here.

We were getting there. Emily was starting to reach out to other children, starting to hold her head up high, starting to understand that she had just as much to offer as they did, and that she could be sure that they wanted to get to know her just as much as she wanted to get to know them. She made many acquaintances and a couple of good friends, and she was happy. It's been a difficult few weeks, and we've been pushed back several steps. But you know what? We'll get there again. And again. And again. And again. I was eighteen before I finally thought I had a solution. My (wrong) answer was to transform myself into what I was "supposed" to be, which made me deeply unhappy. It was another seven years after that before I was finally able to be myself. If I can do one worthwhile thing for Emily as her mother, it will be to make sure she doesn't have to wait that long to understand that both your real beauty and true happiness is measured by what you hold in your heart, not by how many friends you can name.