This is all quite familiar to me too with my just turned 5yo. She has a hard time transitioning and especially finds it hard to say good bye at her preschool and let me go home when I drop her off. If I’m unable to engage her successfully with an activity so I can leave, she will run after me and cling to me and cry and it will escalate to full panic mode screaming etc. Unless I stay longer which usually just prolongs the inevitable.. … How do I navigate this respectfully ?! I always spend a while validating her feelings and then it’s just time to leave, so do I just leave her screaming like that, usually with someone having to peel her off me?? I can’t bear it. She says she loves it there but just misses me when I go.

Dear Janet,
I am an early childhood counselor (M.A.) as well a Speech and Language Pathologist. I love your philosophy and I think you have amazing insights about early childhood, which I try to practice in my parenthood of two young children.
Also – Sorry for my imperfect English, I am French 🙂

When I heard your last podcast, I felt like I had to tell you about my thoughts. This podcast came out on March 3rd, a mother talked about her 4 years old saying no to everything.

You gave her empathic advice about letting feelings happen, and being there as a listening and present mom, acknowledging the no.

All these advice are, in general, to be blessed and hugged by any parent. Although, at the listening of the mom’s letter itself, some red flags happened in my mind. Red flags concerning this child’s development and mental health.

You said it beautifully, you cannot possibly know all the details. Therefore, there might be something else appearing in this letter, to which you didn’t relate.

Here are two directions this letter took me to.

1/ Reaction to Trauma. We do not know what this child went through when his dad had a stroke. We don’t know other behaviors this child presents. But being in opposition in every single proposition from his parents for a few months in a row, including gifts and presence, sounds like this child may be having a very hard time, and may need more than a simple acceptance of the hardship.

I’ll go far with an example much easier to connect with. Let’s say a child goes through rape. And afterwards, becomes very oppositional to his parents. You would not tell the parents “be empathic, understand that a rape is a hard thing and he is going through a hard time”. You may probably add to consult a therapist specialized in trauma?
Putting the behavior inside of a context of trauma makes it clear that it needs to be treated like trauma, and there are specialist that have a trauma background and have tools to help children overcome rape. Any trauma is unique and needs to be treated as though. I believe FIRMLY that us parents are the best keys to help our children. But sometimes, it goes beyond our field of knowledge and there needs to be help from outside. In this case, the reaction described is much more than a simple reaction to a younger brother, it lasts for a long time and is present in every situation, without being treated properly if this is trauma, it can get worse (Oppositional disorder, Difficulties in attachment, Depression… God forbids…)

2/ The second direction my mind went to is the kind of patients I see in half of my practice for years, a symptom of ASD – Autism Spectrum Disorder. Sometimes, children with ASD say “no” to everything as a form of rigidity. Sometimes they feel like the world is soooo hard for them to live that they need to push it away and “no” is a way to do so. Sometimes ASD children have fear around new things because they don’t know how their body and mind will react to them, so they react intensely to any transition, or to any new thing, even if it is a beautiful song or present.

If this child has autism, OR a similar condition, a difficulty to sense the world and process it calmly, and this hardship causes him to say “no” and have a hard time to transition in every single transition of the day, then being calm and present and empathic cannot be enough to help him overcome this and he will need more support.

I work with the DIR model, which works very closely with the empathic and kind advice you give, but for special needs children, taking into consideration their sensory profile and their individual differences. Sometimes it is adding more stimuli and sometimes less…. Some children need darkness and quiet during a transition, some children will need preparation and a visual plan of what is going to happen, some need a comforting item, some need a ipad to be able to express “I am having a hard time” and this is the thing that will calm them down.

You know SO much, you have so many truths about early childhood.
I hope that with my email, you can widen those and orient parents towards deeper understanding of what’s happening to their children before reacting…

I know how well intentioned you are when you give your amazing advice, and I know how much you care about helping parents and children all around the world. This is why I’m turning to you… During these days of pandemic, where people don’t meet each other very much, children often don’t go to school, people have much less professional input and they look up to professionals like you to get answers around their difficulties.
I think it is tremendously important to emphasize the importance of looking at developmental flags, and turn to professionals to make sure the development and the mental health are fine, in order for your advice to be valid and helpful.

Thanks for reading all the way through here, it proves you have a warm and open heart and I hope you take my feedback in a considerate way because of the impact you have on people’s lives.

With love,