“I don’t want you.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I want mummy to make milkmilk for me.”

“I want mummy to bathe me.”

“I want to go with mummy.”……and the list goes on.

Its hurtful to whoever that receives these messages. If mummy is a home-maker, then the receiver is probably the daddy.

‘does the child mean it when he says all these?’ To some extend he does.

This happens to both my kids. For my elder one, Keatkeat, he was taken care of by my mother-in-law whenever we have 2 different stalls selling our handmade accessories. Allan will be in one stall, while I was in another one.

We bring Keatkeat home only when we have a single stall in operation. For survival sake, we seldom have such a chance. We would try to make sure that we have 2 stalls at least, at any one time.

So if you have read my story, you can imagine how much I hated the job I was in then. I hardly have time for my boy and that makes me not much of a difference from my parents.

He was very anti-me and anti-dad then. He will cry and create a big hoo-ha when we brought him home, which I can totally understand, ‘cos I went through such situations too when I was young. So I never got angry and flare up at him.

The cause of this is being too reliant on one particular person, usually the one whom they spend the most time with. For Keatkeat, it was my mother-in-law and for Binbin, it was me.

Most of the time, such behaviour is controllable, but there are times it may become too ‘over-limit’ or too ‘unacceptable’. When such situation arises, there are a few pointers that you may want to do some reflection:-

1) how is your relationship with your spouse? how you treat each other affects how the child thinks of the person.

2) how much time-alone does your husband has with the child? make a point, schedule a day or 2 per week or bi-weekly; leave your child alone with daddy AT HOME, the whole day or for 6 hours minimum. Let your child knows that his daddy can do whatever mummy can!

3) how firm are you with the child when your child says those hurtful words? did you give in easily or did you insist that daddy will play, bath, feed, etc for the child. Your determination to let them be together will affect the speed of alteration to the behaviour.

4) always let your child knows that daddy and mummy is ONE! you two are the same, you two love him as much, you two will not be separable. In this case, she knows that daddy is not stealing your love away from him.

The tactics above were suggested in a parenting programme I saw many years ago. So would like to share with all mummies who may be facing this problem and feeling helpless. hope this helps…let me know if it doesn’t, it worked for me and many other children whom I came across.

Is your child at risk of becoming too reliant on you and you alone?