How to Help Your Child With Separation Anxiety
Have a routine
Work out a goodbye routine with your child and stick to it. Use something like 3 kisses, 2 cuddles and a wave.
Reinforce that you will be returning to collect them and when that will be.
Use a consistent approach of attentive (but brief) goodbyes and happy reunions.
Prolonging the goodbye increases the child’s separation anxiety. Be patient and manage your own anxiety or frustration about drop offs and separating from your child. Access your own supports and look after yourself as well.
Routine applies to before school as well – if mornings are stressful, school drop offs will be as well. Plan and prepare beforehand as much as you can (eg make lunches and pack schoolbags, get uniforms ready the night before).
Make time in the morning for your child. Help to fill their bucket by giving them some special Mum/Dad time before school.
Don’t mind the hiccups, sometimes there will be progress and something might make them go backwards for a day or two. That is ok!
Stick to what they are supposed to be doing eg. going to school, going to bed. Be kind but firm and don’t give in. Allowing your child to avoid school will only make their anxiety grow.
Ask a familiar adult (eg grandma/pa) to take them to school. The separation might not be so intense for them.
Talk about anxiety
Explain how it is normal to feel anxious and that we all experience anxiety sometimes. Anxiety can do a really great job of keeping us safe when we are in danger, but sometimes it gets a little carried away and tries to do it’s job even when we aren’t in danger, and that just makes us feel yukky.
Listen to your child and validate their feelings in a calm manner without judgement. Never belittle their feelings.
Identify anxiety for what it is – remember that you have to name it to tame it. Relate your child’s thoughts, physical feelings and behaviours to their experience of anxiety so they can start to make the connections themselves.
Try to encourage your child to challenge their thoughts safely. What evidence is there? Is this likely or unlikely to happen? What is the best case, worst case and most likely scenario?
Focus on instances that your child has been able to separate positively. Talk about how well they coped, what exciting things they did whilst you were away, how it felt to reunite again. Reinforce that they did it then and they can do it now.
Teach positive self-talk by saying something like: “Some kids find it helps to say, ‘I can have fun at school even when I miss my Daddy.” Or, “It’s ok to feel sad and mad about saying goodbye. I can handle it.” Or “My Mummy/Daddy’s love is with me wherever I go.”
Read books that normalise their experience and provide helpful ideas that you can adopt with and for your child. Try ‘The Invisible String’, ‘What to Do When You Worry Too Much’, ‘The Huge Bag of Worries’, ‘The Kissing Hand’ and ‘Llama Llama Misses Mama’.
Use strategies
Give your child something of yours that they can keep with them during the school day (a transition object). This could be a photo of you, or something that you take halves of, to put back together at the end of the school day.
Have an identified and consistent staff member to whom you drop your child in the morning. Take them to the same place each morning, preferably somewhere quiet where your child can be given individual attention. Arriving early at school may help with this.
A morning transition group with planned activities can help engage and distract a child.
Create a social story: Take your child to school on a day that they don’t actually attend. Take pictures of them every step of the way. Since there is no impending goodbye, there won’t be any drama. Photograph them smiling in the car, smiling in front of the school, walking down the hall holding your hand and standing in the classroom waving a pretend goodbye. Then leave the school, go for a treat and talk about how it felt to go to school so happy. Next, print up the pictures and make a super simple little book with your child’s name in it: For example: “William Goes to School” book.
Use visual schedules or timetables so the child knows what will happen throughout the day and when they will see you again. A paper chain link with each link being a period of time can also be useful. The child removes a link until there are none left and then they know they will see their parent.
Practice breathing techniques using bubbles or pinwheels, or try Take 5 breathing (using the five fingers to count each breath cycle).
Teach your child to relaxation and mindfulness skills. There are many great mindfulness and relaxation apps including ‘Smiling Mind’ and ‘Kinderling’.
Having a ‘busy bag’ in each classroom, full of activities. Children who are feeling anxious when they first come into the classroom can use it to occupy and distract themselves until they settle in.
Create a toolbox of strategies that you have practised with the child. This can include cards as prompts for breathing exercises, a worry box (for them to write and place their worries into), a worry monster to eat their worries or worry dolls, transition objects or sensory tools for grounding activities.