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744603 tn?1348041275

11 Year old refusal to eat and drink when my husband and I went out for the evening

Hi,

I just wondered if anyone would have any thoughts and ideas about some strange behaviour experienced from our daughter the other evening.

My husband and I decided to go out for a meal and to the cinema as a birthday treat. We arranged for Gran and Grandad to babysit in our family home while we were out. They were baby sitting our 11 year old girl, 8 year old boy, 5 year old girl and 18month old girl. We see gran and grandad very regularly, on average twice a week, but my husband and I don't really ever go out.

The children were all well behaved and everything was fine except the whole time we were out the 11 year old refused to eat or drink and was not very talkative. I think Gran and Grandad were alittle concerned by this behaviour.

I just wondered if anyone else had experienced this or similar and if anyone has any advice. We do think our daughter may have some social anxiety problems and Selective Mutism has been suggested by her school, but this seems very odd that she was in a familiar place (her home) with familiar family members.

Any comments appreciated, Thanks!
4 Responses
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744603 tn?1348041275
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. Your experience is interesting, I guess she will just have to get on with it and get over it. It's nice to know that other people agree with my feelings. I am glad that you were able to cope at the time and thanks for sharing.
Kind regards
Clair x
Helpful - 0
744603 tn?1348041275
Hi,

Thanks for the reply, I agree to ignore it, it's only a few hours and she's not going to starve to death like you say. It would be nice to kmow why she behaved like that but it's probably one of things I'll never know. Interesting idea but I don't think she wanted to be the baby sitter, I just think she likes things to be the same and doesn't like change. Oh well, if we start going out more often, she will just have to get used to it!
Kind regards
Clair x
Helpful - 0
1006035 tn?1485575897
I agree with specialmom, just ignore it. When I was a kid I had a lot of anxiety about my parents leaving me with a baby sitter, even one I knew well. I eventually got over it when they went out of town and I had to stay with someone else. They could not come back and "rescue" me. I was upset at first, but then realized everything was ok.
Helpful - 0
973741 tn?1342342773
Hi there.  Glad you got a night out with hubby.  I would imagine that your 11 year old found a way to garner concern in the pack.  She's the one closest to being self sufficient and probably is either expected to help or thought to entertain/handle herself.  So, she probably got several "are you sure you don't want a drink?  Everything okay?  You seem quiet.  Something to eat??"  

Or she may have not felt great about being left and was in a pout.  

but regardless, I'd probably just ignore it completely.  She won't starve, she won't dehydrate, she won;t die of lonliness from one night.  So, everyone ignore it and make sure you and hubby go out more frequently.  good luck

PS:  was she thinking she wanted to be the babysitter??  
Helpful - 0
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