Deb Lewis

***only they can determine what the right amount of personal time and
attention is enough. ***

Who knows what I meant to write there but it should have looked more like
"only they can determine what amount of personal time and attention is
enough."

My friend is going through this with her daughter. My friends very words
were "She's so needy" and yet instead of trying to meet those needs she
went the other way. To "fix" her daughter's neediness she tried to separate
from her daughter more.

If our kids were hungry we wouldn't say the answer to that is to deny food.
If our kids were tired we wouldn't say the answer was to deny them a place
to sleep. When a person has a need the only way to help them is to help
them fill the need.

Deb Lewis

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: d.lewis@...

My friend is going through this with her daughter. My friends very
words
were "She's so needy" and yet instead of trying to meet those needs
she
went the other way. To "fix" her daughter's neediness she tried to
separate
from her daughter more.

If our kids were hungry we wouldn't say the answer to that is to deny
food.
If our kids were tired we wouldn't say the answer was to deny them a
place
to sleep. When a person has a need the only way to help them is to
help
them fill the need.


-=-=-=-

When Cameron was in school, the school sponsored a parenting class.
With a psychiatrist. I knew him. We'd gone to school together. He's a
3-5 years younger than I am. Shaw Evans.

ANyway, he was leading this discussion.

He told a story of an eight year old girl whose parents had recently
divorced. She was in school all day and in after-school care every
afternoon until 5:00 when someone would pick her up from school. She
had soccer and dance classes in the evenings.

Mom worked all day and was tired at night. So tired that they rarely
cooked at home---fast food or sandwiches. Dad was gone---she saw him
one weekend each month.

The child desperately wanted to sleep with her mom at night. Mom made
her go to bed in her room. When the child started to come into the
mom's room in the middle of the night, the psychiatrist's suggestion
was to LOCK THE CHILD IN HER ROOM AT BEDTIME!!!!

I started freaking out. I was hyper-ventilating. I kept saying to Ben,
"We need to go we need to go now I need to go we have to leave now I
need to go! Nownownow!" We walked out.

Here was a LITTLE girl. Little! Eight!. Her dad had moved out. Her mom
worked all day. Child was engaged with everyone *except* a parent all
day. When she finally got home, she *needed* to connect with mom. Mom
simply wanted time to herself. Time to be alone. She *was* a single
mom, afterall and needed time to regroup every day.

So they locked the little girl in her room every night. The child
curled in a ball at the door of her room and cried herself to sleep
every night for weeks.

After *only* a month, the child quit crying and started sleeping in her
bed. Never bothered the mom at night again. Success story!

In this case, the child's neediness didn't outweigh the adult's
neediness. Even though the adult had many more years of ecperience. I'm
guessing that the trust lost will come back to bite this mom HARD in
the butt. Poor little girl.

~Kelly





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