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Bye Bye, Babysitter
Help Your Toddler Cope After a Beloved Sitter Leaves
By Shel Franco
Dr. Arinoldo suggests the following additional ideas to help your child through negative emotions:
- Spend some extra time with the child doing something that the child usually enjoys doing.
- Professional help would be necessary if there is not improvement seen in the child. A good "rule of thumb" is that any significant change in behavior, emotions or attitude, should never be taken lightly, and it should always be discussed with an appropriate professional.
Probably sooner rather than later, you will be ready to find a replacement caregiver. "Never, never go to a newspaper or the Internet to find someone to care for your child," Dr. Arinoldo says. "In today's world, this could prove quite dangerous. Usually, talk to family, relatives and friends whose judgment is trusted to get some names of a possible replacement. Perhaps the child's pediatrician would know of someone or the family physician."
Children are resilient. With enough love and attention from you, your child will be nicely prepared to accept a new caregiver into his or her life, while still leaving room in his or her heart for the old caregiver.
"I look for every excuse to see those kids," Groves says. "When you share something like that, there are memories you will have forever, and it's a bond that you can't really break. I'm just thankful for the time we had together."
