For months, our mornings followed a familiar, happy pattern. My three-year-old son, Johnny, would wake up beaming, stuff his tiny backpack with random toys, and race toward the door as if daycare were the highlight of his day. His excitement gave me comfort. It told me he felt safe. It told me he was happy. Then, one ordinary morning, everything changed.
The moment I mentioned getting dressed, Johnny froze. Tears filled his eyes. He wrapped himself in his blanket and begged me not to take him. At first, I brushed it off as a normal phase—toddlers resist routines all the time. But this wasn’t mild resistance. The fear in his face lingered, and it followed us out the door and stayed with me all day.
Over the next few mornings, his reaction only intensified. The word “daycare” made his shoulders tense. The laughter that once filled our mornings faded into silence. I tried to reassure myself that it was just separation anxiety, but deep down, I knew something wasn’t right. One quiet evening while we were reading together, I gently asked what was wrong. He paused, then whispered two words that changed everything: “No lunch.”
He couldn’t explain much beyond that. He just kept repeating that lunchtime made him scared. In that moment, I realized he wasn’t refusing daycare—he was asking for help in the only way he knew how.
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