By Darlena Cunha, contributor to The Washington Post and author of the blog, Parentwin
We're having a problem with dirt lately. Every morning, when my child wakes up to go to school, she can't make her bed. Instead, she will spend 30 minutes swiping at invisible, nonexistent dirt in her sheets. She'd spend all day doing that if she could. I cap it at 30 minutes.
She'll sit on the potty for hours if you let her, as if she's glued to it. Convinced she hasn't gotten every last ounce of refuse from her body. She can't put her shoes on. The seam in her sock is too much for her little foot to bear. Her backpack is crooked. She got one less marshmallow than her sister in her Lucky Charms. She needs her headband to keep her hair back, but not actually touch her head.
It's a treacherous world in which we all live. A world defined by the intense anxiety of a child who doesn't understand what anxiety even means.
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