How to Help Your Child Separate from You
Does it seem as if your child is overly attached to you? Does he put up a fuss at school drop off? Have you ever questioned your own parenting, because your daughter ends up in tears and tantrums when you leave her at an activity? Discomfort at separation is normal and to be expected. However, if your child is unable to be soothed and seems to experience extreme distress in your absence you might consider whether a stronger form of Separation Anxiety is at play.
Separation Anxiety Disorder is a cluster of symptoms occurring over several weeks and months that cause impairment in your child’s ability to leave you. At this level, your child may experience fear that harm will come to you while you are away. The fear may present in nausea, headache, stomach pain, impaired sleep, and excessive crying. The difficulty your child experiences may stem from a disturbing experience such as the death of a loved one, divorce, severe illness, or a sudden, and difficult separation such as a hospitalization.
The treatment for Separation Anxiety Disorder can include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Systematic Desensitization.
One method in CBT is to counter the feared belief. Let’s say the belief is “I cannot survive without my mom.” Parents can gently engage the child with the following questions:
Is it true?
Is it absolutely true with 100% certainty?
How do you feel when you have that thought?
Have you ever survived without your mom for any length of time?
What helped you to get through that successful separation?
These questions help the child to question the validity of his own belief and to look for exceptions. This builds strength and confidence that the exception (surviving separation) can be repeated.
Another approach is to build strength and confidence in separation through strategic training sessions (systematic desensitization). Select a day when time and energy can be set aside to face a smaller version of the feared situation. This might start with leaving the child at a trusted family member’s home with a plan for a brief separation. It might then progress to a slightly longer period of a planned meet up at school with the teacher outside of normal class time. The final level would include official class drop off. Each step can be repeated until the family is ready to pass on to the more difficult separation. This builds both the parent’s and child’s ability to tolerate separation. Parental anxiety can stimulate child anxiety and should also be addressed.
A third avenue is to plan a conversation to address the historical loss. When the parent has sufficient time, energy, and patience, the child can be invited to talk about how the parents’ divorce affects her ability to separate from her mom. She can be invited to talk about whether she fears she might lose her mom. Gentle curiosity, prolonged listening, and comforting before correcting can soothe a child’s troubled heart.
A combination of these approaches is recommended.
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