How To Cope With Your Child’s Separation Anxiety

Separation anxiety is a very real problem for parents of young children. It can be especially difficult for parents who spend most of their time with their kids, making less use of daycare and school programs than the average parent. Your kids get used to spending time with you and then panic when they aren’t with you. But in order for them to grow up with healthy emotional attachments, they must learn to overcome their separation anxiety, and of course you have to be the one who teaches them how to do that. The first thing that you need to realize is that a good portion of your child’s separation anxiety may be coming from you. It’s never easy to leave your kids somewhere that you can’t keep an eye on them so you probably have mixed emotions (at best) every time that you do it. But your kids know this and if you’re conveying fear about leaving them, they’re going to pick up on that fear and internalize it. Dealing with how you feel about leaving your kids, including making sure that you’re truly leaving them with people and situations that are comfortable for you, is the first step in coping with your child’s separation anxiety. The feeling which often comes up other than fear is guilt about leaving your child. If your child knows that you feel bad about leaving, he or she will manipulate that feeling to his or her advantage as much as possible. Getting a grasp on your guilt prevents this awkward power play. Okay, so you’ve dealt with your feelings and you think that you’re okay with leaving your child somewhere for a little while, but then you get there and he or she starts throwing a tantrum and you want to offer comfort. You need to remember that separation anxiety is a normal part of a child’s development and that you’re there to help him or her learn to get over it. Teaching the child about appropriate separation will help him or her build healthy relationships. But you want to do this in the appropriate manner and offering comfort is definitely appropriate. The main way that you can do this is by being very clear about when your child can expect you to return and then being consistent in returning on time. If your child is staying with a babysitter and you plan to pick him or her up right after afternoon snack, time that in advance with the babysitter and then explain to your child that you will be back at that time. Then show up. This will show your child that you can be counted on to be back when you say you will and ease separation anxiety in the future. Finally, make use of tricks and games to make the entire process easier while you and your child both learn to cope with separation anxiety. There are little thing that you can do that remind both of you that you’ll be back together again shortly. For example, you can buy inexpensive little bracelets, one for you and one for your child. Trade bracelets when you drop your child off somewhere and let him or her know that you’ll each get your own bracelet back when you pick him or her up again. Looking at the bracelet throughout the day will remind both of you that you’ll be back together soon and the act of trading will reassure your child that you’ll be back later. Little tricks like this are beneficial to both of you. Remember that learning to cope with separation anxiety is a process. It’s not going to be easy to let your child go off in to the world and you’re going to have different stages of this process to go through at different times. It’ll happen the first time that you drop your baby off with the babysitter, the day that your child makes the transition from home school to public school, and the day he or she goes off on that first sleepover, first date and other “firsts”. Learning to deal with your feelings about it and to communicate to your child that you’ll always be there in the end is the way to deal with this process all throughout his or her lifetime.