Advice on Parenting a Clingy Child

Something we’ve done with clingy four year olds at school is to get mum to draw a heart on her hand and then one on the child’s in felt tip pen, we call them hug buttons and when you want to send a hug or let mum know you’re thinking about her you press the heart. It sounds silly but it has worked for several of our clingy reception children.

I think what it shows is she is very loved and is used to her needs being met. My mother went away for a year when I was five and what I remember is not crying. I instead asked if I could give the cat some milk and was so pleased and that is all I remember. I think it had repercussions later in my life. Be gentle with her and all those things suggested. My mum embroidered two pictures for me which I still treasure...she was in hospital.

Or as janipans suggests. Take a break for a few months?

CarolynOco - I'm a psychotherapist - your granddaughter's problem is linked with her attachment style and that's something that's developed in her relationship with her primary care giver who I assume to be your daughter. Whether your daughter can remember the trigger or not there has been some difficulty when your GD was much younger and this has affected her ability to separate from her mother and to attach to someone else - even though when she is finally left at nursery she stops crying. Go onto youtube and find videos on Anxious Attachment - this will help you understand. All anxieties are caused by fear but it may not be the fear of your GDs mother not returning which makes her so clingy - for example she may have thought at some stage that she has done something wrong and that if she is away from her mother, her mother may transfer her love to someone else. As others have said she needs reassurance and the piece of clothing is a good idea but the key is to drive down to the exact fear and deal with that. Telling the child to pull herself together is a sure way for her to grow up with a definite anxious personality. She might stop crying but she will always suffer with anxiety and that will destroy relationships. Hope this helps.

My son did this from the moment he started nursery until the age of 10 when I finally got him some help. Although he didn't do it every day once he was in Junior school, at the beginning of each half term we would go through the mill. Even if he didn't cry, he would get really bad stomach aches. When he was 10, illness meant I couldn't walk him around the corner to school and he would walk with a friend. The school would then ring me to tell me he was reporting that he was sick on the way to school and so they couldn't keep him there.
I knew it was his anxiety rather than illness and as I had a young child, I spoke to the Health Visitor. She had a friend, Helen, who worked in child psychology so Helen visited us weekly to give him strategies to cope with the feelings he was experiencing. Within a few months, he was coping. She helped us get him into a less rough secondary school so, with only a couple of hiccups, things went well.
Your grandaughter might be a little too young for such strategies but help is out there if nothing else works.

ValerieF

Hmmm just part of life I am afraid. I remember crying for weeks for my mum when she left me at school too. No option only to go though is there? Especially if she is 5 and not 3. Where I live children move on to actual school by 5 not nursery

All you can do is persevere and ignore the tears. Unless, as someone says, there is any reason to suspect it is not a good nursery? Eventually she will accept that - this is life!

that's horrible!

Can she take a little "something" in a bag, pocket that her mum asks her to look after for her, or even something of her own that could be considered a comfort for her. Your GD needs something to transfer her anxiety to instead of her Mum. Nearly 5 years old, can she go into nursery along with another child who is calm and accepting?

My eldest dd clung to me in the playground whilst others were happily running around. The only way I could get her to line up and go in was to wait outside the classroom window so I could wave to her when she got in there before going home.

Mostly she lacked confidence and you just have to do whatever you can to give that confidence. I was furious on one occasion when she was one of two chosen to see the school doctor. As we were going in she slipped her hand into mine. The school doctor then accused me of being over protective saying I did not need to hold her hand! I retorted that it was her holding mine and that was what gave her the confidence to go in. Additionally the doctor was an Indian lady with a red spot on her forehead which dd had never experienced before. So what is wrong with a nervous 5 year old holding mummy’s hand in a situation she was not used to. Doing that meant she coped fine.

My daughter used to cry when I left her - which upset me too! The nursery teacher told me to just walk away then come back and look through the window after 5 minutes. I did this and my daughter was playing - happy as Larry!
My granddaughter was the same (payback time) except she continued to be upset so the nursery recommended that she stop coming for a while. My daughter employed a childminder for a couple of days a week for her at home, so she got used to someone else teaching her but in the knowledge that mum was just "at work" in the study. Then lockdown happened.
Anyway, she has gone back to nursery now and is very happy there.
I don't think it's to do with age but whether the individual child is ready, and if she's not, then what is a few more months with mum in the great scheme of things?

My friends son used to be like this. Crying when he went in and again whilst waiting to be collected. It turned out that he thought that when parents arrived to collect them they chose which child they wanted to take home and he was scared he wouldn't be there when his Mum turned up! Once he understood that he would always be there until Mum turned up he was fine.

I ran a preschool for many years.
We invited mums in before the child started for a few sessions, so the children were familiar with their surroundings.

Now that your gd has been there for a month, she could be left with teacher at the door. It just prolongs the upset. Her named key worker should be on hand to settle her.

She will be fine as soon as mum leaves. It happens a lot so don’t despair. She’ll have a lovely time. ?

I love some of the ideas on here, especially the role play and the hearts.

My son was a very clingy little one and starting school was awful for him - and me. He wouldn’t take his coat off and bless them they didn’t make him though they did hang on to him while telling me to go. He never took his coat off for the whole term and I was told spent every playtime sitting alone on a bench. His older sister was there so he was very familiar with the small friendly school but he found it all too noisy and frightening. These days I would probably have been told he was on the Autistic spectrum and they would probably be right.

He eventually made a friend and gradually got used to school but never liked it.

My son was the same. He was 4 and a few days when he started in reception.

He had a wonderful, inspired and compassionate teacher who felt that the hustle and bustle of the start of the school day was just too much for my fragile little flower.

She suggested bringing him in 10 minutes early and have him settled with a jigsaw or some colouring before the rest of the class drifted in. He barely noticed their arrival (or my departure) and everything worked out fine.

My older one went through a phase of this when at nursery school to the point where I considered keeping her at home (after all, at 3-4, no child really NEEDS to be in school). I'm afraid I resorted to bribery - a smartie each day just before she went in did the trick.
(And yes, I know, dental risk etc... But she's 43 now, running her own school and her teeth are fine)

There’s a similar situation with my GD. She will soon be 7 and is in year 2. Everything was fine until she had to go back after the latest lockdown. She has always loved school and has lots of friends and a very caring and experienced teacher. It has been a struggle for my DS and DIL but things are slowly improving now. She just didn’t want to leave her mum and home after so long.

Great advice here and please reassure both your DD and yourself that this is totally normal. She may or may not grow out of this but it is sometimes she will get used to. I have four children, one was like this and it was horrendous and she never liked school, much worse for Mummy though than the child especially as once DD is out of sight child is fine.

I’m with the quick hug quick departure advice

Good luck

She is fine once she goes in

If this is true, can mum stay a while?

Or maybe it's as someone else said, it's the initial noise that exacerbates the problem and she needs mum to simply get her through the door and to a quieter place?

I have no further advice to give apart from what has already been suggested, but thought you may like to hear what happened to us: My youngest went in very happily on her first day in 2005. On the second day she went in less happily but okay, so I left. I was walking down the road to the car to go home when I heard her little voice screaming 'Muuuuummy!' She'd gone out of the second, open, classroom door, passed the teachers and all the other parents milling around in the playground, out of the gates and across a road filled with cars coming and going without being challenged once! She was in a dreadful state by the time I heard her (and I thank God even now that I hadn't already driven off.) I calmed her down, which took a while, and took her straight back. She hadn't even been missed!
The school altered the entire Reception morning intake area immediately because it wasn't secure, as proven by my quietly determined child!

My daughter drew a heart on gs and her hand. That seemed to help. As a childminder. I had a few Children like that. And soon as parent went they stopped. I think sometimes it's just to get parents attention. But I always got the child involved in doing something quickly.

My grandson now 18 was the same. Tge nursery and then infant school let him take a very small item and a comfort piece of material in with him. He still has the material butmobviously doesn't use it anymore

She's had a bit of an odd year, and it's actually been a quarter of her life. She's finding it hard to seperate, some children do. Lots of good ideas about things to give her to help. I do think the nursery should lend a hand as well, she should have a named key worker, I would ask them to be sure that this is the person she is handed over to every time. At my GCs nursery we were also allowed to go into the nursery to drop off, when one of them had problems we found that going in and settling them down with group of friends and an activity before we left helped them settle. Could you do this?
I do hope your DD isn't worrying too much. I had to seperate crying children from their parents mny times and the child really did settle down whereas I expect the parents worried all day. That can also come across to the child and increase anxiety. The child knows the mother is worried, and thinks its to do with the school, not with her, so she becomes more worried.
Good luck I'm sure she will settle

One of my DGD's was like this when she was about three and a half. It had been going on for a few weeks, and was stressful for her and DD. She was with me one day a week, which she was happy with. I took advantage of her love of role play. This was often centred round nursery. My role varied between being a pupil, parent or the teacher, directed by 'herself'! One particular day I suggested that she was mummy and was taking me to nursery. When we ' got to the door ', I started to behave as she did, clinging and crying, finally getting down on the floor, crying. She was actually quite shocked. I then suggested we did it again, differently. The second time, I gave her a quick hug, then said, " Mummy, go home and have a cup of tea, then come back for me." It actually worked, amazingly. Worth a try.

My DGD hated nursery after the first few days and was exactly the same until she started school. Previously at a child minder who she loved going to was fine there.
At school She was fine after the first week and loves it now
Your DGD will settle in time

My eldest made so much fuss that the teacher had to lock the classroom door ! I didn’t know for years as we lived in a rural area and his Dad had to take him in the car and I wasn’t told till one of his classmates was reminiscing, I felt so bad , I think that drawing hearts is a lovely idea

Explanations have been tried and are not working, so now is the time to follow the suggestion to pop the child in through the door and walk away.

I know it sounds cruel, but it is not as nasty as it sounds.

Most children go through this phase at some point during the years of creche and nursery. They are not really worried about going to the nursery, they are trying to find out how much power they have to make mummy do what they want.

Not deliberately, it is a semi-conscious behaviour, but as most parents do not have the option not to send their little ones to nursery, making it clear to the child that this is the way it has to be as undramatically as possible is the best road forward.