September 9, 2005

Struggling with your preschooler’s separation anxiety

By Nadine Williams
Special to the Times

It’s the first day of class for your preschooler and you’re feeling nervous yet excited about this new stage of life.
You go to drop him off and suddenly you’re faced with a child screaming, “Please mommy don’t go, don’t leave me; I want to be with you; I want to go home!” This has to be one of the most heart-wrenching moments a parent will ever experience and it’s known as “separation anxiety.”

This perfectly normal developmental process occurs in every young child when they experience the thought or act of being separated from their mother or primary caregiver. It happens at or around the time of a transition and can look many different ways, ranging from signs of excitement to extreme anxiety.

Why it happens
Its occurrence has to do with brain development and the cognitive process in which a child acquires knowledge by means of experience, reasoning, intuition and perception. It’s through this stage that a young child learns about the concepts of objects, permanence and time.

Children struggle because of the unknown, just like an adult going into a new environment, and because they have no accurate sense of time.

When dealt with properly, however, separation anxiety can successfully build a child’s trust in their parent and result in a healthy level of independence.

What to expect
Parents should expect the unexpected. A very shy child may transition relatively easily, while a very grounded, confident child who has never shown signs of anxiety may have a melt down.

Sometimes the symptoms are delayed for two weeks or two months, and some children will do fine even up until the spring. It’s also not uncommon for returning students to go through separation anxiety their second or third year back.

What can you do
Often it is the parents who are struggling with this separation, and if a child senses their hesitation, he may feel like there is something to fear.

Things that parents can do to get through this stage successfully:

- Project a sense of confidence

- Hold back tears until after dropping off their child

- Never leave without saying goodbye

- Don’t say goodbye and then come back

- Tell them when you’ll pick them up, for example, after story time

- Send child with a transitional object like a blanket or stuffed animal

- Arrange play dates with classmates to establish a peer connection

If a parent wants reassurance, they should call their preschool 30 minutes after class begins to check how their child is doing. Understanding that separation anxiety is a natural aspect of development may help parents know what to expect and what to do.

East Hills Preschool will provide a free parent workshop on this topic, Monday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m. The workshop is open to parents of East Hills as well as parents who have children in other preschools.

East Hills Preschool is located at 14845 Story Road, San Jose, Calif., 95127. Hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call (408) 923-8616 or visit www.easthillspreschool.com.

Nadine Williams is the director at East Hills Preschool where she’s taught since 1979. She has a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Sonoma State University.