Makaton to communicate: "Scared"

"Scared". Elyza has been having a new obsession lately: mommy's hair need to be partitioned on both sides of her face falling forward over the shoulders. It started with her not wanting me to tied back my hair and now it has turned into an obsession so much so that she would wake up at night to check my hair. So today, after yet a horrible night woken up having my hair pulled because they were not organised as they should, I decided to work on this obsession of hers. Over the past days we have been working on the concepts of "stop, no!" and "enough, finish" with me keeping the same voice tone and doing the same hand gestures. Today I applied them to me telling Elyza to not pull my hair, giving her the alternative of her putting my hands to my hair for me to rearrange my hair instead of her forcefully pulling my hair or madly jumping on me to arrange my hair according to her liking. As you can imagine, the first instances were not easy ones, a lot of shouting and crying, and me being firm and standing my grounds with a serious face. Elyza copied my reactions together with the hand gesture to "stop, no!" as well as would not agree to the "enough, finish". She would shout and cry, and go hide under the cover then come out to try again. And it would be an eternally same dance until hopefully she understands. Then suddenly she shouted "angry" and makaton signed angry to me, and I responded with the words and signs that mum was also angry, and that mum was also sad and hurt when Elyza would pull mum's hair. She calmed down then, came back to my hair this time not pulling but gently moving my hair to re arrange them as she wants. I was happy of the results.

But I wanted to try to push this session a bit further and see her reaction, so I moved my hair all to the right shoulder only and asked her what is the problem signing and saying "what is wrong?" when mum moves her hair like this, and to my surprise, Elyza said and signed "scared". So according to the OT some time back when I first mentioned this issue to her, said that me having changed hairstyle in a new setting might have disturbed her; that this is not mum with this hair style but the other hair style is mum. This conversation came to my mind as I heard Elyza say scared and sign scared. Now that I understand the issue (I had a feeling it was it, but having her confirming it telling me she is scared, confirmed my doubts), now we will gradually work on different alternatives to eventually get her to let me wear my hair as I want to and not necessarily as she wants it to be.

Similar scenario when she was younger was with her toys needing to be lined up exactly as she wanted it, not a mm to the left or right of how she placed them. And lately the same with people in a room needing to be sat in the order they originally were sat and not otherwise. And now my hair ... the pulling and the need to have my hair in a particular way is annoying but what is the most painful is her whining that would last even after I would move the hair as she wants it to be, so hopefully with the approach of gradually allowing her alternatives and working on explaining to her that she need not be scared, the hair issue should be resolved ...