The Bond of Parent and Child

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As an owner of a nursery school, I one day found myself working with one of the children who was 3-years old and suddenly became very anxious for no apparent reason.  Her mother told us that the child had cried for almost the whole night, so she thought that perhaps she was sick and took the child to a children’s health clinic.  The medical staff examined her, but they didn’t find anything obviously wrong with her, and so they gave the mother some aspirin and sent her home.

Quick Trip

When they came home, the child’s mother put on her best clothes in preparation for the return of her husband (the child’s father) who was on a trip in search of a job.  Her mother decided that the child would come home from school that day and they would greet her husband at the airport, so she packed juice and snacks to keep her in a good mood.  The child knew that her father was coming on that day, but she started crying as soon as her mother began to make her way to the airport.  After some period of time she calmed down, and I asked the child to tell me about her father, but she was incredibly distressed and unable or unwilling to communicate clearly.  

Strange Stressors

The more that we attempted to calm her down, the more that she screamed and shouted, and she soon began to fight with the other kids.  However, we could not allow her to do this, and so one of the teachers took her away from the other children and spent time with her alone.  Regardless of all the snacks and juice that we offered, she continued to scream and yell for no obvious reason.  I tried calling her mother, but she wasn’t picking up, so I asked one of the nursery supervisors to take her for one of the walks that she liked, but her stress and anxiety continued unabated.  She was so anxious that nobody could handle her.  I found myself playing soothing music and told her to sit in my lap and tell me about her dad.  She seemed to like this and fell asleep.  However, she soon began to wake up and ask for her father again and again. 

By now I thought that her mother would have returned with the father and picked up their child, but the hours grew late.  After we closed up for the evening, I asked the shuttle driver to drop her off at her home in order to return the child to the family, but once they reached their destination, we discovered an unexpected connection to the child’s constant upset on that day. 

A Strong Connection

They recognized that her father had died prior to boarding his return flight as a result of severe meningitis, which suggested to us that the child was somehow knew about or could feel the stress of the event through her bond to her father.  She was experiencing some sort of intense tension and anxiety and a result of the distant death of her father, which nobody knew about until that day.  In-fact, this was one of the most unusual and inconsolable children that I had seen on that day, and it was on precisely the same day that her father died prior to boarding his flight. 

The bond between parent and child is unique among many, and so the possibility of some form of mental link exists in my mind.  The child was panicked, grieving, stressed, and hurting for what appeared to be an unknown reason, but the connection seems to be clear.  Something strange happened on that day.  

- Anonymous Contributor