(istockphoto)
Q: My daughter is only 18 months old, but your recent comments [in your online chat] about the child being in charge really hit home. She is super mommy-focused and loudly opinionated. At this age, I know separation anxiety can be high, so I don’t want to push her away. But she is constantly trying to control my every move. Mostly, I am just supposed to always hold her. But often there are demands on top of that. And sometimes I need my hands. She is much more subdued with my husband if I am not around. And she does great at day care. Any advice?
A: Children being in charge of their parents is a major problem, and I see it frequently in 4-year-olds and up. But 18-month-olds? This is a different story.
You are noticing all of the age-appropriate behaviors for your 18-month-old, so let’s go into why an almost-2-year-old becomes so “mommy-focused.”
Your daughter biologically needs to stay close to you, and her body and mind are built to keep you close. The following, the crying and the demands for you to hold her are not manipulative. Her brain sounds an alarm that says, “Stay with Mom, stay with Mom, stay with Mom.” Although it seems as if she is easiest to handle at day care and when she’s with your spouse, all this neediness means that she is most attached to you.
So, understand that she is not trying to manipulate you. This is a crucial shift in your thinking, and it can help your feelings go from resentment to empathy. If you resent her reaching and cries, it will usually lead you to wanting to teach her a lesson or nip this kind of behavior in the bud. And while shame, punishment, timeouts and yelling may work in quieting her, these tactics are not addressing her deeper needs.
The fact remains that when she is in day care and away from you, she misses you. She cannot voice her feelings (there is not enough language), and she cannot moderate her feelings (her prefrontal cortex is too immature to filter her emotions into feelings, where she can then reflect on them herself). Essentially, you are parenting a young child who desperately wants you.
Does this mean that you should quit work? Drop everything you are doing and hold her until your arms fall off? No and no. This is not practical, not good for your daughter, and not even what she wants and needs.
Does her behavior mean you need to make some small and conscious changes to your parenting behavior? Yes. And lest you think, “Great, I am going to be shackled to this child forever,” I will remind you that nothing lasts forever. This is a stage, and you and she will move through it. I can (almost) promise it.
Here are some ideas to lessen the pain of this stage:
1. Take some things off your plate. For example, can you make most of your meals simple? I’m thinking crockpots or rotisserie chicken types of meals. This will free you up from chopping and sauteing and give you more time to sit with your daughter.
2. Carve out moments for special time. Simply put, you are going to put everything down (especially any technology), set a timer and lie on the floor with your daughter. You can roughhouse, read books, play with toys, pretend to be animals, go outside and run. It really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you are focused on her, you are smiling and having fun, and you are keeping boundaries and routine.
3. Don’t be afraid to put on “Sesame Street” if you feel her neediness is becoming too much for you. I would rather have you snuggle her on the couch and watch one episode of “Elmo’s World” than push her off you for an hour.
4. Use bath and bedtime as a way to connect. Use relaxing smells, laugh and play quiet games in the tub, massage her feet, and really cuddle her up.
Despite all these lovely strategies, your daughter will still cry for you. This is part of the gig. Our job is not to stop the crying, per se, but to roll with it in a loving way. The crying is a sign of adaption, which is to say that the brain is accepting what it cannot change. The only caveat here is if she panics and becomes hysterical. This is a sign of true disturbance, which is not healthy for her brain and her emotions.
So allow her to cry. You can mumble sweet nothings or sing to her, and you can return to her as soon as you can. There is little difference between what you are doing whether you are resentful or peaceful; the difference is how it feels.
If you are resentful because she is too attached, your body will be tense, and your eyes will not be soft. If you understand that this is normal and that you can handle it, your posture will be loving, your jaw relaxed, your mouth smiling and your eyes shining toward her.
This second way of being is deeply felt by an 18-month-old. She is a sponge for your energy, so take very good care of yourself so that you can take very good care of her.
Send questions about parenting tomeghan@mlparentcoach.com.
Also at washingtonpost.com Read a transcript of a recent live Q&A with Leahy at washingtonpost.com/advice , where you can also find past columns.