Separation Anxiety In Children

Separation anxiety is a term I’ve always associated with my pets and not my children. I had a dog once that suffered from separation anxiety and anytime he was left alone he literally destroyed my home. I felt bad for having to lock him in a kennel when I left home, not realizing that he actually felt safe when he was in his kennel. Over the years, working for Head Start I realized that children actually suffered from this condition too, and it is our job as teachers to help the children feel safe when they are in our care. Now having said that, separation anxiety in children is not exactly the same as in dogs and goodness knows we are not going to lock children in a kennel to help them feel safe. So what is separation anxiety in children and …show more content…
Some children cry, some scream, some absolutely refuse to interact with the class. I have seen children who will not talk and children who will complain of every aliment their minds can conjure up and I always just chalked it up to the child not wanting to be at school. Normally after a couple weeks with lots of love and attention from us, the teachers, the crying and complaints would ease and finally quit altogether. Then one year, I had a child who after a month was still displaying these symptoms. She cried until she couldn’t breathe, she would not interact with the other children all day, she always felt sick and she acted scared at every transition. I thought back to my dog, the one who destroyed my home and decided to do a little research on separation anxiety in children. I quickly realized that this child was really suffering, not just being difficult. Through my research I discovered that ignoring the signs and thinking that the child would just “get used to it” could be doing irreparable damage. Some of the signs she was displaying were classic to separation anxiety, yet I had no clue. Signs to look out for could range from the mild: being sad, crying, and always saying they want their mom, to the more severe: depression, tantrums, nightmares, and real physical ailments such as stomach aches, racing heart, and general aches and pains. My research revealed that “If separation anxiety is …show more content…
They were very concerned for their daughter and were actually considering pulling her out of the program. We asked them to work with us a little bit longer to see if we could help the child. The first step we took was to get her switched from our morning program to our afternoon program. There was a majority of boys in the morning program and the exact opposite in the afternoon. We thought being with more girls might help ease some of the problem. It also gave the child the morning time with her mother so that she had time to wake up and not be rushed out the door first thing in the morning. I had read that some children needed counseling and the parents said that if that was what they had to do they were willing. I had talked to our nurse about the issue before bringing it up to the parents and she agreed that it might be an option if we kept noticing the distress in the child. Further research more recently taught me that “Counseling can help children with separation anxiety disorder, and everyone around them, to understand that their symptoms are caused by a disorder with complex genetic and environmental origins--not by flawed attitude or personality. ("Separation anxiety disorder in children and teens") I would have loved to have had this website back then. I know the parents were feeling overwhelmed by what their child was going through; however we all worked together and helped the child

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