Silence isn't golden, it's difficult!

S hadn't done it for a long time, but today she clammed up.

The whole first half of the year this was pretty typical behavior. She would freeze up as soon as anyone other than her sister spoke to her. But that last month or two she's finally started speaking up. She's still a bit hesitant to answer questions, but making it very clear that you're expecting an answer, and giving her one or two specific things to say usually snapped her out of it.

But that's not what happened today.

She and her sister, N, were wandering around the classroom,`being pretty disruptive and chatting away. I had them stop and said that it was time to choose work. N immediately pipped up that she wanted to make a fish book and took off to get the cards out. S immediately tried to follow her and that's when it all went downhill. I told her to stop and said that N had already chosen a work and she, S, needed to choose her own.

S looked up at me in utter silence, her eyes big and her face shocked. I asked what she would like to do and she clammed up. Patiently waiting and asking the question occasionally in a slightly different way didn't work. She didn't even respond to yes or no questions by moving her head. The only thing that moved was her eyes, flicking from me back down to the floor.

Getting nowhere I led S over to a shelf, saying that maybe she could get some ideas there. She followed me, but when I stopped moving so did she, going back to her frozen state. A couple more minutes of trying to get her to take something out did nothing except give her time to work a few little tears into her eyes.

At this point I figured it was probably just best for me to give her some space, since it was obvious she wasn't going to tell me what was bothering her, or make a choice like  I was asking. So I took something off that shelf that I knew she had mastered and usually liked to do and told her that we were going to go find a table for her to work at. I led her to the quietest corner in the room, figuring it would give her some space to get herself together again. Again she followed me with just a little nudge and I set the work on the table and let her alone.

10 minutes later she was still standing over in the corner, looking at the table.

Another teacher went to talk to her and got the same blank stare I had gotten, along with a few more tears. So she gave her a tissue and also left her alone.

I have to admit that I wish I could have helped her out more, but when a child doesn't respond, what else can you do? I think I'd rather have them yelling furiously at me instead. That I know how to deal with!