Separation Anxiety: When Stress and Kids Collide

I bet when you read that title, you thought I was going to write about my 19-month-old hitting that gut-wrenching stage where leg-clinging and crying as you leave is the norm. But actually, my daughter marches straight into day care and barely has time for a good-bye.

It's my son. My sweet, loving, sensitive, smartie-pants, newspaper-loving, school-enjoying kindergartner. During pre-k, he'd start shaking and crying anywhere from a few minutes to 15 minutes before he was picked up anywhere from one day a week to three or four days a week. The day care folks started arriving as early as 10 minutes before school ended and they'd often look in and see my son crying. He'd regularly accuse them of being late. They never were. But no matter, his perception over-ruled his ability to understand the hands of the clock--or even the fact that no other parent or caregiver had arrived to pick up another child yet (and oh boy, if another child got picked up, early, the tears could start even earlier). As the school  year went on, his tears were less frequent, but they never went away. The summer was worse--we ended up hiring various babysitters to pick him up from camp early since it seemed a significant number of kids left camp by 4pm and he'd get so worked up about leaving at the same time that some mornings he'd be crying and anxious before we even got to camp (the camp itself wasn't a great fit and we ended up cutting his time there short anyway).

So, when my son started kindergarten, I spoke to his teacher on day 2, when parents were invited in for orientation. She seemed surprised to hear about this end-of-day anxiety because, she said, my son seemed bright and quite mature for his age from the two days she'd interacted with him thusfar. But, she said she'd keep an eye out and that she'd work with him and us if the issue lingered. And it did. And she did work with him, to the point where I'd vote her teacher of the year. She somehow convinced him that late was this really, really far off point in time and his anxiety and tears seemed to be pretty rare. He'd have worse weeks, always coinciding with weeks where I worked more hours than usual.

Rare, that is, until recently. Now, he's generally fine, but when he feels anxious, the episodes are much, much worse. So bad, that when the first child was picked up from day care on Friday (he goes to day care after school two days a week and to an after school program three other days; we have a sitter pick him up 30 minutes before the after school program ends for obvious reasons) well, he got so upset that he threw up. Twice. He then imagined and instantly believed that I was not just going away for two days to help a friend pack and move, but rather that I was moving away with my friend--this despite numerous reassurances that I'd be back Sunday.

My son, it seems, has separation anxiety. He needs more parent time. Specifically, he needs more time from me. I noticed the anxiety episodes worsening months ago, but I was so elated that they were less frequent that I ignored it. The worsening coincided with me moving into a new role at work that requires longer hours more often and also required me to give up my work-at-home day. On that day, I'd wrap up early and pick the kids up from day care by 5:30. I also was able to pick up the kids another day of the week and I always tried to arrive so that they'd not be "the last" ones picked up. It might be a tie, but not the last!

This all ties in to what I wrote about missing time with my kids vs. my original mantra of simply not missing bedtime. But it's pretty obvious to me that I can't just settle for trying to figure out a way to be around earlier another night of the week. I have to figure it out, for my son's sake and for mine.

I've received some advice from a friend (and professional in family counseling) and I'm going to try it this week. If you've dealt with anxieties like this with your children, any advice?