Tips To Help Your Child With Separation Anxiety

When you leave a young child it is perfectly normal for them to feel anxious and separation anxiety is actually a normal part of development. If you understand how to deal with separation anxiety, it should become easier and disappear, as your child gets older.

Separation Anxiety Explained

Clinginess, tantrums and crying are all normal in early childhood. Separation anxiety can begin before a child turns one and may last or reappear until the age of four. As we have said above, it’s normal for your child to feel anxious when you leave them, but there are things that you can do to help your child. In some cases, separation anxiety doesn’t fade and if it persists, it maybe a bigger issue known as separation anxiety disorder.

Easing Separation Anxiety

There are steps that you can follow to help to make separation anxiety easier.

Practice separating

At first, you need to leave your child with a caregiver for a short period of time. Once your child has become used to this, you can leave them for a longer period of time.

Saying goodbye

You need to develop a speedy goodbye ritual, for example, a goodbye kiss or a special goodbye signal (such as a wave or a high five). It is important to be quick and not drag this out.

Be clear with your child

Tell your child that you are leaving them, but you will return. Once you have done this, leave swiftly and don’t turn saying goodbye into a big issue.

Don’t make promises that you cannot keep

In order for your child to become used to being separated from you, it’s important that you are return on time, as promised.

Don’t give in

In order for child to be able to move forward from separation anxiety, you need to reassure them that they will be okay when you leave. Don’t give in to them and be consistent with your approach.

After absence from school

If your child has been absent from school, you need to get them settle back into school as soon as possible. If this means they only go to school for a shorter period than normal then it’s worth doing this, as children learn how to cope with separation through experience.

Rewards

If your child has been doing really well in coping with their separation anxiety, then as with anything else, praise and reward them.

Look At Your Own Stress

If you are feeling stressed or anxious, your children are more likely to suffer from separation anxiety. For this reason it’s important to make sure that you are calm, stress free and not anxious.

Exercise: reduce stress and feelings of anxiety by doing regular exercise.

Discuss your feelings: talking about how you feel can be very useful, even if there’s not much it will do to change how you feel.

A Balanced diet: in order to cope with stress, your need to be eating the right foods. Eat lots of fresh fruit, vegetables and healthy fats and avoid sugary snacks and junk food.

Sleep: if you’re not getting enough sleep, your stress levels will increase. Stress can cause you to feel foggy and prevent you from thinking clearly. Good sleep affects our mood and our quality of life.

Professional Help

If your child’s separation anxiety seems more severe, then as we mentioned previously, they may have separation anxiety disorder. The kinds of symptoms that they may display in this case are: