Leaving a 4-year-old

[NotQuiteCockney]

My DS1 (4) can be left anywhere, with anyone. On holiday, we dumped him in a casual holiday camp in the next house, full of local kids who knew each other already. Which was almost entirely in French, a language he doesn't speak. (Two of the teenagers running the camp had good English, though.)

And that was the highlight of the whole trip, for him. I'm used to being able to dump him anywhere, particularly if there are other kids there.

Are other people's four-year-olds like this?

i could leave dd most places as well - she is also 4
maybe it's the age?

posted too quickly
she 'makes' friends in strange places ( or calls them her friends of course she usually doesnt see them again) waiting for appointments, other kids at the library - she's quite a happy and outgoing little girl, and confident, prob that more so than age , although at that age most things to her are pretty rosy and everyone is her friend!

Actually, he's been this way forever. He's never minded being left, particularly in places where there are other kids.

I've never left him anywhere I didn't feel he was safe. And when I've had slightly rubbish options (PILs, my parents, or the emergency daycare that DH's work pays for), I've used them minimally, if at all. And he's never been away from me for 24 hours, which I know is weird.

Yeah, DS1 makes friends that way. I once heard an older kid, who we'd never seen before, tell his friends that DS1 was his little brother!

He is a child of the scrum.

I really hope DS2 comes out the same way, I don't think I could cope with a clingy child.

Ds is 2.8, an only child, I haven't got many friends with kids, he has never been away from me for 12 hours, he is only ever with me or his dad, yet his first day of playschool he ran off with a cry of "Bye bye mummeeee see-ooo laterrrrr...."

While I stood with a wobbley lip, handing over 5 different phone numbers to the lovely manager, exhorting her to "Please phone me if he gets upset, I'll come straight away, I'm staying in town...."

He will go to anyone. He kisses random 9 year old girls if he can catch them. God knows I tried to get him to be a clingier baby(needy mummy) but he screamed firmly until left alone to go to sleep. That is why I don't condemn parents of clingy toddlers, I don't think most of them did anything to make their child like that. It's all luck of the draw.

I may have been able to leave ds1 at that age but none of the other three. It was impossible to leave dd2 until she was about 7yo and even now she needs to have chapter and verse as to who-she'll-be-with-what-they'll-do-what-they'll-eat-where-the loos-are and so on and so forth. Very wearing at times!

I have never wanted a clingy baby, and have shrugged off any clinginess in my two. I do think clinginess is a bit luck of the (genetic) draw, and a bit environmental.

I do try to tell DS1 what will be happening in advance (but he doesn't need names and details, which is good, because I sometimes don't have them). He never gets left by surprise. I was boggled at a school thing he went to a while back, to find some of the parents hadn't told their kids they'd be going off with other adults!