I'm being driven mad by a couple of well meaning, but I believe OTT relatives, and I've gone from being 100% confident to now wondering if I'm being lax in not being overly worried about this specific issue.
DN is 3.5. He's had a massive amount of upheaval in his life in the last 10 months.
His Mummy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He went from 2 days at nursery to 5 days to allow her to have treatment and rest.
Then the relative who was going to be taking him in moved in with them. So that was a big change as it had always been just him and his mum.
Then after 8 weeks it wasn't working with relatives job so he and his Mum moved into relatives home.
Then shortly after that relative and his Mum accepted that it wasn't going to work. The relatives job and life just didn't work with a child and they couldn't cope. So he and his Mum went home.
After lots of discussions it was decided he would come to us. Initially his Mum didn't want that as we have 6 children (3 are adults) including one with high needs so, understandably, she was worried he wouldn't get what he needed.
He and Mum moved in with us for the last 8 weeks of Mum's life. He has been with us since, and will be staying (all official).
Annoyingly we had to change his nursery unexpectedly so that was another unforeseen big change.
The issue people are seeing is that he follows me around constantly. He hates if I go into a different room and he can't hear or see me. I deal with this by chatting to him constantly or singing. He will accept if we explain that I have to go somewhere without him, but is quiet/subdued until I return. He also sits very quietly at nursery when his key worker is on her breaks, but bounces back to enjoying nursery when she returns.
People are commenting on him being "fixated" on me and his key worker, whereas I think it's entirely normal that he's anxious when his primary carer is out of sight given everything he's been through.
He's having play therapy and I think that's entirely enough, but others think we should be organising more help. He's a wee boy who has had his entire wee life turned upside down and I think it's very natural that he'd worry I'll vanish one day too.