Almost 2.5yrs old..and extreme seperation anxiety!:(

Re: Almost 2.5yrs old..and extreme seperation anxiety!:(

• ThatWasAHoot member

  January 2014

  What about a playschool?  There is a little girl in my son's playschool class and she apparently has a similar issue where she cries if mommy leaves.  But she's gotten so great at school!  The teachers know how to distract her and get her into their arts, crafts, playing, and gymnastics that they do.  I've seen her mom leave and she gets upset and goes "Where's mommy?"  and then the teacher will say "Come sit in my lap and we can do [fill in activity]"  and she does and is happy! 
  
  I know, from being a preschool teacher before, that it is normal to a certain extent.  But this is the age where you want them to start doing things on their own a bit more.  And you want them to be more independent before they start getting annoying lol
  GL
  

  Little Man 1.8.11
  Freshie Girl 9.29.12
  

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• AvianaNmommy member

  January 2014

  Thank you for your response, I appreciate it!!

  I think I have to do something like that.....I can only imagine it getting worse as she gets older! Plus, I want an independent,confident child, but I just feel guilty knowing shes crying for an hour or more when I am gone!

  
  

  
  

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• ashiscute member

  January 2014

  I second preschool.  I think if you could find maybe 2 days a week for a couple hours that would be great for her.  With all of the other kids and activities it would probably be much easier to engage her than a private babysitter at your home.  Teachers are much better prepared for it the crying than the workers at the YMCA I'd think.  

  
  

  I know it's hard to not feel guilty if she's upset but the good of her being there would outweigh the bad.  Good luck!

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• TiffanyBerry member

  January 2014

  This is pretty similar to my daughter.  I didn't force it.  I didn't give up - we didn't stop trying occasionally - but I also didn't force anything.  Preschool has helped a little, but I stayed with her (the whole two hours, twice a week) the first half of the year.  (She does not, however, engage with the other kids much.  She doesn't like the crowds.  She's sensory sensitive - probably not full on SPD, but she's got some overlap - and so many kids create to much noise input, visual input (running around), vestibular input (running into her or bumping her), and so on.)

  
  

  

  

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• Chuck1906 member

  February 2014 edited February 2014

  I recently went to go see a parenting counselor for a few things and this was one of my concerns. He told me what I was calling separation anxiety wasn't really that. So anyway he tells me to drop my son off at daycare and then leave. He seems to think that if I stick around once we arrive to daycare or nursery school then he is going to want me to stay with him the whole time, but if I just up and leave as soon as I drop him off, he will be forced to adapt to that environment. 

  
  

  I kinda understood where he was coming from but wouldn't that disrupt the other kids in the class if my son is doing nothing but crying and screaming for his dad? Not only the kids, the teacher who has to stop what he/she is doing to calm my son down who would be crying uncontrollably. 

  
  

  My son is 2 and has always been watched by his mom or me or a family member so dropping him off at a school where he knows nobody regardless of what kind of toys and stuff they have in there for him to play with will be hard for him. I found this out the hard way recently when I dropped him off at the nursery at our church. They had all the toys he loves to play with but when I said Daddy is going upstairs to church, he latched onto my leg and started to cry because he didn't want me to leave him. I gave in and brought him with me and he sat there the whole time and was good! LOL! 

  
  

  I have to somehow break that cycle though...just not sure how because I want him in summer camp this year. 

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• TiffanyBerry member

  February 2014

  Chuck1906 said:

  So anyway he tells me to drop my son off at daycare and then leave. He seems to think that if I stick around once we arrive to daycare or nursery school then he is going to want me to stay with him the whole time, but if I just up and leave as soon as I drop him off, he will be forced to adapt to that environment. 

  
  

  I kinda understood where he was coming from but wouldn't that disrupt the other kids in the class if my son is doing nothing but crying and screaming for his dad? Not only the kids, the teacher who has to stop what he/she is doing to calm my son down who would be crying uncontrollably. 

  
  

  My son is 2 and has always been watched by his mom or me or a family member so dropping him off at a school where he knows nobody regardless of what kind of toys and stuff they have in there for him to play with will be hard for him. I found this out the hard way recently when I dropped him off at the nursery at our church. They had all the toys he loves to play with but when I said Daddy is going upstairs to church, he latched onto my leg and started to cry because he didn't want me to leave him. I gave in and brought him with me and he sat there the whole time and was good! LOL! 

  
  

  I have to somehow break that cycle though...just not sure how because I want him in summer camp this year. 

  That is the standard advice for dropping kids off at a daycare/preschool/the like.  Short and sweet goodbye and then don't look back.  For MOST kids, they will calm down after a few minutes, and go about their business playing.  Yeah, you won't get to see that part as the parent, but it happens.

  
  

  How do I know?  Because that *wasn't* the case for my daughter.  She needed me to stay with her for the whole time (2hrs) at preschool for months when she started (at 2.5yrs old), and even once we moved to where I could leave, and have progressed to staying the shortest time possible, I still need to stay for 10 minutes or so (after we do the normal routine for arriving), to help her settle into the environment and feel out how she is going to manage/regulate herself while she's there alone (you could say "get her bearings", but it really is more complex than that phrase gives credit).  The handful of times where another commitment has prevented this, things have been much harder for her.

  
  

  So, while I was there with her the whole time, I saw the other kids get dropped off, go through the quick goodbyes, and cry when their parents left.  And then settle down and HAPPILY go play two minutes (or less) later.  These kids are now, 1.5yrs later, happily bouncing off from the front gate all the way to preschool on their own.  (Most of them - a handful, including mine, still want mom/dad with them.)  A few of them (less than 25%) still need mom to come in with them, and one or two are still sad on departure (my daughter is one of them).  But they all adapt and manage.

  
  

  All that said - 2yrs old is really quite early for drop-off summer camps!  And even if he'll be three by then, you have to determine if YOUR son is ready for it, rather than just if his age qualifies him.  Not all kids are, and pushing it won't help matters if he's not the sort to be pushed.  Of course, if he is, then pushing will.  Clear as mud, no?

  
  

  

  

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