[BeverlyZ]

Hi, all, we adopted our son at 9.5 months old, and he is 2.5 years old this month. I noticed a change in his behavior when he gets hurt. Previously, he would want my comfort ONLY, resisting my husband or anyone else who would try to say something nice. I always thought it was odd that no one else could help him.

Now, he comes to me only about half the time when he's hurt. The times that he does not come to me, he's going to no one else. He screams "no" at me and runs away. I'm so bothered by this! I can't decide what triggered this change. At first I thought he was embarrassed since most often they were accidents on his own (bumping head, tripping over something). He would blame my hubby if he was in the room... weird, right? He occasionally went up to my hubby and hit his leg. Now my son is hitting me on occasion. It's so very strange.

I can't think of anything that happened recently. And I definitely could use some coping strategies for me and my family. I want him to know that we would never hurt him, and we will always want to help him!

What do you all think?

I should add that my son started to say "don't leave, mama" when I would go somewhere. It hasn't happened all the time, but it is happening at weird times, like when I will go to the garage to load it for whatever event we're planning to attend. For this reason, I feel like the behavior is related to the comfort thing, and is pointing me to attachment.

[BeverlyZ]

I think I figured it out! I let my son watch The Lion King a few days before Father's Day. My son talked about it a lot, always mentioning how the daddy lion died. (I realize that I cannot have my son watch ANY Disney for a few years because too often there's a loss like this!) Anyway, we visited the cemetery for my father-in-law on Father's Day, and we talked about Daddy's dad passing away. Somehow I didn't put 2 and 2 together regarding my son's recent awareness about death, especially fathers.

It was too much. I'm sure that this triggered the weird behavior.

Now what can I do to mend things?????

[Mommy K]

I would talk more about the loss and what it means, and explain that you aren't going anywhere for a very very long time..

Also developmentally there is another seperation anxiety phase roughly around the age of two.

An attachment related behavior that involves injury is when a child comes to you for comfort with an imagined or very minor boo boo-but hides a more serious one, and does not want to be comforted for it.
hth!