Tricia – How have your family relationships changed?

My daughters were 7 and 11 at the time.  It was a hard change, I think, for the kids because I worked part-time, so I got them off in the morning, I was home for them in the afternoon, and over the years that’s obviously changed.  I get them off in the morning, but he’s home in the afternoon with them, or they come home alone.  It’s a little harder as far as the way the kids deal with things.  My older one, before the accident was very clingy.  She did everything with me; I couldn’t even go to the grocery store without her.  You know, the most boring of details she wanted to be with me.  Since the accident though, she’s actually changed quite a bit.  She’s come out of her shell, she’s very independent.  She started high school this year, and she is very open to trying new things.  My little one on the other hand, who was very independent, and always running around doing something with the neighbors, the friends, has kind of reverted the other way now.  She’s actually more to herself.  She likes to watch TV; she likes to do things that, you know, don’t necessarily involve tons of people.  She actually has a lot of anxiety, she doesn’t like going to school.  I don’t know—we’re working on that to figure out what’s going on with her.  But, whether that stems from the accident, that she doesn’t want dad to be home alone, maybe she feels comfortable being with him, I can’t say for sure right now.  A lot of it to me is just change.  I think when the accident happened for her, school was her comfort zone.  I think she enjoyed being there because it was a steady in her life, and now she moved up to, like, a level where they’re changing classes, and they’re changing for gym, and they have, you know, four schools combined into one.  And so, there’s tons of people there, and it’s just a different environment for her.  And I think that that change, she’s really struggling with it right now.  We are seeing a professional for assistance with what my youngest one is dealing with in school, and the anxiety she’s having with the changes that are going on in her life now.