Surmountable Challenges

My daughter doesn't seem to want to try anything new. She whines and cries if I try to leave her anywhere. I'm worried that she won't be ready when she is supposed to start kindergarten in the fall. Should I keep her home for another year?

A Personal Experience

When my youngest son was four years old, his father was the at-home parent while I went to work. We decided that our son would benefit from attending preschool. However, when his dad took him to preschool, our little boy whined, cried, and didn't want to enter the preschool. For a couple of weeks, his dad stayed at the school with him each day and eventually took him home early, thinking the child must not be ready to separate in this way.

Eventually, the preschool gave us a deadline to decide, and our son was left there for an afternoon. To our surprise, he loved it! He was happy to socialize with the other kids and learn the new tasks the preschool provided. If his dad had continued to give in to his anxiety, he would never have learned that he could handle this new surmountable challenge.

The Importance of Surmountable Challenges

While a healthy, secure attachment is very important for a child's emotional health and self-esteem, it is also important for parents to encourage their child to venture out and explore. Sometimes parents who have experienced insecure or anxious attachments themselves may unintentionally transfer their anxiety onto their children, trying to keep them close when the children should be confidently moving out into the world and facing surmountable challenges.

A surmountable challenge is one that stretches the child a little, forcing them to grow and learn new skills, but is still manageable rather than overwhelming. If we protect our children from such challenges whenever they balk or whine, they will not learn self-confidence.

Finding the Right Balance

A child will not learn to protect themselves in the world if we are continually there to do it for them. We cannot protect our child from every possible situation. Children need information and skills to protect themselves. Overprotected children often lack confidence in their ability to make choices and may look to others (peers or adults) to make decisions for them.

Children need to face stressful situations and work through them if the risks involved are reasonable. Of course, it would be neglectful to allow our children too much responsibility too soon, so we must find the right balance.

How to Help Your Daughter

Keep exposing your daughter to new situations that are manageable, like playdates, swimming lessons, or part-time daycare. If she has a shy or slow-to-warm-up temperament, she may balk at first.

• Don’t Give In to Whining: Avoid changing your mind in response to her whining, but don’t just leave her there without support.
• Provide Encouragement: Stay present initially and encourage her by saying that you know she will be able to handle it.

As she learns she can manage these shorter separations and new challenges, it will become easier for her to transition to kindergarten. She will develop into a confident adult rather than a fearful one.