Thank you so much for this conversation - it is really helpful to have some concrete strategies with my 4 year old who absolutely refuses to play by herself. On that note, think a missed opportunity here was to talk about the pandemic and the impact that has had on dynamics and roles of parents and very-littles in the home. My daughter was born Feb 20, and I like to call myself an ‘accidental attachment parent’ as a result. I became a SAHM, which was not something I’d ever planned to do, and it was largely just her and me the first two years. We live in an area where folks and businesses were super conservative about Covid so there just wasn’t much to do. I overbought toys because I was so desperate for her to be willing to play by herself for ANY stretches during that time. And now, while she is thankfully a confident kid who rarely shows and separation anxiety (except at bedtime, a whole other story), she is SUPER attached to my husband (who worked from home during the pandemic) and me and if we are there, we MUST be playing with her. I am going to implement some of these techniques, but I still feel such anger at the pandemic and how poorly it was handled and what it took from me those first two years. Then I feel shame at the frustration and anger I feel. I know other moms who have kids the age mine is who feel their own variations of this. I know that we are only beginning to see the impact that the pandemic had on each generation of kids, but that as well as the trauma so many of us feel having parented newborns/toddlers during that time is very real and worth tending to, and I think this topic ties closely into it.
Thank you so much for this conversation - it is really helpful to have some concrete strategies with my 4 year old who absolutely refuses to play by herself. On that note, think a missed opportunity here was to talk about the pandemic and the impact that has had on dynamics and roles of parents and very-littles in the home. My daughter was born Feb 20, and I like to call myself an ‘accidental attachment parent’ as a result. I became a SAHM, which was not something I’d ever planned to do, and it was largely just her and me the first two years. We live in an area where folks and businesses were super conservative about Covid so there just wasn’t much to do. I overbought toys because I was so desperate for her to be willing to play by herself for ANY stretches during that time. And now, while she is thankfully a confident kid who rarely shows and separation anxiety (except at bedtime, a whole other story), she is SUPER attached to my husband (who worked from home during the pandemic) and me and if we are there, we MUST be playing with her. I am going to implement some of these techniques, but I still feel such anger at the pandemic and how poorly it was handled and what it took from me those first two years. Then I feel shame at the frustration and anger I feel. I know other moms who have kids the age mine is who feel their own variations of this. I know that we are only beginning to see the impact that the pandemic had on each generation of kids, but that as well as the trauma so many of us feel having parented newborns/toddlers during that time is very real and worth tending to, and I think this topic ties closely into it.