Lately, adult stress around separation anxiety with young children has come up frequently – with clients, with friends, and in working with early childhood educators. It can be such a heartbreak for a parent to leave a child at preschool when they are clinging to your leg and crying. And though the parent may know that it’s good that your child is attached to you and normal that they are scared to be without you transitioning into a school environment, it doesn’t lessen the pain and worry. In addition to using strategies to ease that transition, it also becomes a milestone to celebrate. Your child is learning to be on their own at school without their parent by their side. It’s a giant leap of independence for a young person. And each time they have a leap of independence, they discover the courage and confidence to persist through the solid foundation of love and support you’ve provided for them.

In those early years, children do not have the ability to separate your love from their behaviors — or your scolding or rule-enforcing when they make a poor choice. And so when they have a particularly tough day, make messes and mistakes, they need your reassurance that you love them no matter what – even when they are doing things you don’t like. If you are a parent of young children, it’s important to remember that they need to hear from you that you love them even when they’ve ripped your new dress, written in Sharpie marker directly on the tabletop or spilled the literal milk. You’ll get upset surely and they will too. Hopefully, you’ll guide them through ways they can repair the harm they’ve caused or clean up the mess they’ve made but at the end of it all, whenever that is, they’ll need to hear that you love them no matter what.

In the school age years starting around third grade, school becomes highly conditional and performance based. Typically gone are the warm embraces from teachers. The teachers are now focused on the third grade reading guarantee. Academic performance becomes paramount. Sports are not just co-ed and for the fun of it. They are for skill building and they’re competitive. Children’s identities and friendships too begin to change. They move from “I’m a nice kid who likes to play and explore and befriend anyone” to “I achieve in certain subjects and make goals on the soccer field.” Whereas young children were friends with the peers who sat next to them during snack, now peers are friends who are in the same reading intervention group or skilled (or unskilled) at sports after school and on weekends. They been leveled for their area of competence and labeled too. Because the expectations only continue to rise for achievement and performance, our school age children need to hear that no matter their test score, no matter their GPA, no matter whether they can score a goal or not, you love them and you see them for all of their goodness.

In the middle schools years, life changes dramatically. Physical, cognitive, emotional and social changes are constant. Students feel a sense of vulnerability and sensitivity as they undergo changes and their peers’ opinions become top priority. Judgment reaches an all-time high in their life as friendship groups play the “you’re in,” “you’re out” game which to an outside adult looks like a cruel primitive ritual but tends to be a rite of passage for most and can be tremendously painful when you are deemed “out.” Middle schoolers will want plenty of privacy to navigate their social challenges and push you away as they try and gain independence. No matter what age you are as a parent, you are deemed “old” and unaware of youth culture. And their knowledge and acquisition of youth popular culture is the most important ticket into a social circle. Whereas in the early years, they clung to your leg unabashedly, now they actually may want to cling to your leg at times but wouldn’t dare. And when they feel those cravings – those needs for your love and attention – they’ll create conflict with you and become argumentative and grumpy in order to push you away and self manage their confusing internal conflict. Oh, middle school is not easy for anyone! But those tween-agers and early teens still regularly need to hear that you love them no matter how grumpy or pimply they are. You may have to deliver the message in a note under their door (and you may not immediately be appreciated for it) but they still need to hear it! 

In high school, teens are actively experimenting to figure out and define who they want to be. They have a new level of competence pressure because their friend group is not solely based on knowledge of youth popular culture but is also based on competence and performance. Show competence in a sport, theater, music, the arts, and the teen will find friends with similar interests and competencies. Performance pressure heightens further as the stakes grow even higher. Teens’ academic scores will determine where they go to college, if they acquire funding for college, and how they will rank in their school. Sports become so competitive that injuries are common, practices or games are daily, and travel on weekends is part of the package. Though teens continue to push you away to gain independence, your influence is still important and a powerful force in their lives. After all, they don’t have it all figured out and are still relying on you for most aspects of their existence. They’re busier than ever and may hardly stop to have a conversation with you once they are driving, have their own romantic partner, and a range of extracurriculars that keep them out. Their daily lives are conditional – as they receive academic performance feedback daily/hourly; as they receive performance feedback on their extracurriculars; as they navigate friendships and relationships that come and go with the wind. They’ll acquire reputations – good, bad, or ugly – at school that we, as parents, have no control over though our job is to continue to see their light inside — the best of who they are — and can be. Though their independence can produce heartbreak for parents (spoken as one of the heartbroken) as they are busier and less present, they still require our reassurance that we love them no matter what, that we’ve got their backs if they need us, and though everything in their world continues to change, our love will not.

Where will they learn unconditional love if not from you?

Happy Valentine’s Day to you and your family!