Clinginess May Just Be Part of Child's Character

Q. Our 5-year-old daughter is sweet and easygoing but extremely attached to me, her mom.

She was like this when she was smaller but then things started to get better and they went very well for her last year. She adjusted easily to preschool, made good friends, was willing to have play dates without me and would even ask if she could go to someone's house or to get picked up by another mom. Also, she was fine when we visited my parents' house.

Now that school is over, however, she doesn't want to leave my side, she doesn't like to stay at anyone's house without me or even go to the playground with my husband, and she cries when we make her do these things.

I don't know what has changed. We have many play dates and do many fun things as a family and with friends, so it's not that I am always alone with her.

Next week she will do a one-week camp in the morning and I'm wondering how it will go. Is her attachment to me a sign of a serious problem? Should we take her to a child psychologist?

A.Not yet, and probably not ever.

It usually takes time and experience for parents to learn how to read the cues that their children drop, and to realize that these cues change from child to child.

And yet that is just what you must do.

Study your child, both at play and at repose. What games does she invent when she's alone? How does she talk to her dollies? Her playmates? What activities make her the happiest? The most aloof? The edgiest? Is her body language aggressive? Defensive? What kind of a person is she, anyway?

You may think that all children act pretty much the same, but that's not true. You just have to watch them play for five or 10 minutes before you realize that each is different and almost all of them have some eccentricity or other.

With your daughter, it's the clinginess, which could, of course, have a psychological cause, but that's not the only possibility. Sometimes a child is afraid to leave her mother's side not because she is overly attached to her but because she has an auditory processing problem and tries to avoid people who might speak too loudly or too fast. Or she may hover around you because she has a sensory integration issue, which can make some children clingier (or clumsier or more distant) than others.

More likely, though, your little girl is clingy the way another child might be rambunctious or shy or chatty: It's just the way she is. According to Carl Jung, there are 16 temperaments and they govern our behavior, our interests and our ease -- or unease -- with others more than anything else.

Although your daughter may moderate -- or exaggerate -- her temperament over the years, it behooves you to accept her as she is right now, and at every age, rather than try to make her personality morph into a carbon copy of your own. It can't be done.

Instead, let your daughter be a bit anxious as she contemplates the big year that lies ahead. All children are excited about starting kindergarten but they are also, quite rightly, a little bit scared, and some are more scared than others. They are, after all, opening the door to a whole new world and the more sensitive and the more introverted the child, the more anxious she will be about school, at least until she gets there and feels comfortable in the classroom.

You can expect your little girl to become more daring in the next year, whatever you do, but it probably will happen sooner if you let her go forward, but slowly, if you tell her exactly where to find the bathroom and the cafeteria at school and if you read "Emily's First 100 Days of School" by Rosemary Wells (Scholastic, $6) together. Once she knows what to expect in school, it won't seem so mysterious or so scary.

To make parenthood less mysterious, read "The Developing Child" by Elizabeth Murphy (Davies-Black, $14). It will help you understand your daughter better, even though your temperaments probably are quite different.

Questions? Send them toadvice@margueritekelly.comor to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.