Wednesday, 20 September 2017

4.5 year old is really stressed out about moving


My husband is in the process of leaving the military, and I leave for Officer Training school in 7 months. After my initial training (8 weeks), my family will move with me to my next base. We aren't currently in our home state, and our kids (4.5 and 1.5, both girls) are no strangers to deployments/being separated from loved ones. But maybe I'm not doing a good job at minimizing the stress of the situation...I hadn't planned on telling my daughter that I was leaving until closer to when I left. But my 4 y.o. is a little eavesdropper and got wind that we were moving. This lead to a lot of questions, and I figured honesty was the best policy, so I explained the situation and she is really freaking out about this. I told her that honestly I don't know where we're moving to, but we will all be together very soon, and to not worry about it too much, because we will always take care of her, etc. But she will ramble on and on about how we will have to leave our home, and what will happen to her bed, and where will we be for Christmas, and can yellow guy (her beloved stuff animal) come too, and will we ever talk to Oma again (for the record, Oma already lives in another state and we visit at least 3 times a year and FaceTime nearly nightly). I've really talked her through all this and explained that our stuff comes with us, of course yellow guy can come, of course we will still talk to and visit Oma... but it doesn't seem to calm her down. Today she started making a book of pictures for me because she's afraid I will forget her when I leave. And she's suddenly VERY worried that daddy doesn't know how to do her hair for school. Maybe she was too young to remember our previous moves, but she did not sweat my husband leaving, so this is sort of new for me. What can I do better here? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2wGgWju

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