An Appeal to Mummy from her Loving Baby

• Don’t be afraid to be firm with me. I need it to make me feel secure.
• Don’t let me form ‘bad habits’. I rely on you to detect them in the early stages.
• Don’t correct me in front of others. I shall notice if you talk quietly with me in private.
• Don’t spoil me. I know well that I shouldn’t demand everything. I am only testing you.
• Don’t brush off the questions I ask as unimportant. If you do so, I shall stop asking.
• Don’t nag. If you do, I shall have to protect myself by appearing deaf.
• Don’t make me feel smaller than I am. It only makes me behave stupidly ‘Big’.
• Don’t make me feel my mistakes are sins. It upsets my sense of values.
• Don’t tell me my fears are silly. They are terribly real to me, try to reassure me.
• Don’t protect me from consequences. I need to learn the painful way sometimes.
• Don’t take too much notice of my small ailments. I use them to grab your attention.
• Don’t be inconsistent. It makes me lose faith in your words and actions.
• Don’t forget that I love experimenting. How would I learn without it?
• Don’t make me believe that you are perfect or infallible. It gives me a huge shock when I find that you are neither