Thoughts for the Week:

Wanting to take good care of our children is a big part of why most parents leave them to go off to work. Of course, that can be hard for children to understand. They sometimes wonder why a person who loves them wouldn't want to be with them every minute. One of the things that we can do is to assure children that parents miss them when they are away from them and love them even when they can't be with them.

Part of growing is learning to cope with the strong feelings that come when a parent goes away. Sadness is one of those emotions, and that's the one we generally associate with partings. The other significant feeling at being left behind is anger. That one is not so often recognized or acknowledged, and it can have some delayed effects. Reunions often bring to the surface all the anger about their parents' having left them that children may have kept inside. Although adults tend to think of "Hello" and "Goodbye" as opposites, children may treat them both as aspects of the same experience: being left behind by a loved one. We can help children handle the anger that comes with separation by talking with them about why people leave and what feelings children may have when parents leave -- and come back again.

Summary of the Week:

Children can have lots of feelings about their parents going off to work -- so can their parents. In this week of programs, Mister Rogers introduces children to some working parents who talk about how much they think about their children when they're at work.

Mister Rogers has some raw peanuts and shows a video of how people make peanut butter, a common food at child care. Because toilet training is another part of child care, Mister Rogers reads a book about going to the potty.

In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe Prince Tuesday is angry and sad because to him, it feels like his parents are always going to work and never seem to have much time to be with him. He finds that he can be helpful by volunteering to work with the younger children at the new child care center at Corney's factory -- and that helps him deal with his own sad and angry feelings about his parents being busy at work.