Letting Your Child Take The Lead

Dear parent,

Notice that you are asking a question because you don’t dare to listen to your heart or you need to confirm what you feel inside. Intuitively you know to be with your child and honor his wish. You are right.  The reason you don’t easily trust your own intuition, is the result of this same idea of deciding for children what is best for them. When you were a child, some decisions about yourself were taken away from you or discounted by adults who cared for you. That’s how you lost your own self-reliance, independence and self-confidence. Instead of listening to your heart, you learned to doubt yourself and to listen to authority.

Your child is more confused by a mother who leaves him against his wish than by anything else. “Mommy loves me, how come she leaves when I don’t want her to?”

Listen to your heart. Your intuition is right. Trust yourself and trust your child. He does not want you to leave.

A child learns to trust himself and to become independent by being allowed to lead his own life from the start. As a parent, it is your job to remove obstacles from his path, not to ignore his choices. Removing obstacles can include safety issues, health issues (food) and removing anything that may cause harm, like media, junk toys or other harmful influences. In all other areas, a child should be the only one deciding about himself. Wanting to be with mommy is up to the child to decide at all times. 

Daycare professionals prefer that parents leave because it is easier for them. They mean well and have been taught that it is about the child, but it is not. It is much harder for teachers to control a group of children who trust themselves and therefore are not pliable. They prefer docile, compliant children to make their unnatural and therefore difficult work manageable.

The child is best off being autonomous and self-reliant. When he experiences that his will is honored, he learns, “I can rely on myself,” and, “my inner voice is right.” Such experiences of self-reliance are the foundation for being independent and confident in oneself.

I must add that if you fully listen to your child, you will not take him to a daycare at all. Daycare is not a viable substitute for parents and can do much harm. Children of similar ages cannot get along peacefully for very long. In daycare, a child learns to be with people who don’t really love him, and to fail socially and therefore depend on adult control.  

I do not know if you must work and therefore need substitute care. But if you have a choice, I would very highly recommend to give your child the best social interaction nature gave him and that is relating to you. No matter how great the daycare, it is not you; it is not one-on-one relationship of deep love.

Young children, when they realize that mommy left in spite of their tears, not only give up on trusting themselves, they actually believe they are not worthy and that mommy doesn’t love them enough. You will find your child happily playing when you return to pick him up, not because the daycare is good for him, but because he has the wisdom to realize that the hours he is there are forced on him and he may as well have fun. He learns to surrender and to let go of his will (good for the teachers but not for him.) He gets engaged in the only life he sees possible.

Social skills are best learned in a one-on-one relationship, ideally with mother and father and other intimately loving adults. One older child to play with is fine too, but not a group of peers and not for so many hours. With loving intimate relationships, the child becomes socially skillful; he is imitating adults who are socially capable and with whom he is socially successful. He sees himself as able to relate and is unlikely to resort to aggression or victimhood.

If you have to work and must have care for your child, I recommend to use the money you spend on daycare, and pay it to one adult care giver who would care for your child in the hours you must work, and even bring him to your work place. If you don’t have to work, then keep your child with you and find an older child to play with him if he likes. 

In summary: If your child cries when you leave, then he says, “I don’t want to be without you.” Trust him and respond to his need. 

I can imagine that this response can be very unsettling for you. You may reject it, or you may feel sad and confused. My words may touch your intuitive heart and yet they run contrary to the many other mainstream voices around you. If you need more clarity, emotional strength and understanding your child’s real needs, I would love to assist you via a phone session. You can book yourself a phone call with me by signing up here: http://authenticparent.com/guidance.html

Warmly, Naomi Aldort, http://authenticparent.com