6 Year Old Having Separation Anxiety

Your daughter sons like my son! He is 6 (7 in Dec.) & he started acting like this when he was 4 1/2 & hasn't stopped. lol We always have to announce where we are going when we are in the house. If he is downstairs & my husband or I need to go upstairs for something, we have to tell him we are going upstairs for this & we will be right back. He will say ok but a minute later of him being by himself downstairs, he runs upstairs to find us but tries to act like he was coming up for another reason. Cuz he knows what we told him & that we aren't leaving him, he is fine & not to be scared but he still does it. If we don't tell him what room we are going to or if we went outside, he will call out our name & if we don't answer he starts yelling out for us & goes into panic attack mode running around the house, opening the front yelling for us. I don't even know what the neighbors think of that when they hear or see him running out of the house yelling/looking for us. lol Sometimes we laugh about it now cuz it's the samething over & over.

He is fine w/us dropping him ____@____.com once he gets out of school & he is waiting right there for us to pick him he will start to cry if he doesn't see us right away. We had to explain that it is ok if we are not there right when the bell rings. We told him there is no need to worry or cry if there are still kids there. We told him u can start to cry/worry when u notice it's only u & the teachers left (which this has never happened but we had to tell that).

We do have a daughter 1 1/2 yrs old but I don't think it has anything to do w/him sharing Mommy & Daddy. He started acting like this when I was pregnant w/her. He always wants his sister around & if she isn't w/us, he is thinking about her & asking when are going to pick her up(if someone was watching her for us).

My son is just a scardy cat like his momma. =) lol I was chicken when I was kid but I don't remember being that bad. We did get tired in the beginning of telling him everytime we were going to another room but I guess we learned to deal with it & just hope that oneday he will grow out of this. I just keep thinking that once he becomes a teenager he will probably care less about where mom & dad are. So I just try to think good that my son still wants to stick close to us as long as possible. =)

Good luck!

I had a baby when my son was 3. We went through a similar situation, but it passed. I would set aside time for her once daily, even if it's just a bedtime routine. I talked to him about how special it is to be the "big brother" and he has always wanted to be helpful. It could possibly be the new baby in the house, and needing to share attention. I think if you are patient with her and validate her feelings, sometimes kids can not put the feelings into words, it helps if you put them into words for her and ask her if that is what she is feeling. There are a ton of books out there both about having a new baby in the house and about feelings. You could find one on Amazon that is age appropriate.

My oldest daughter went through something similar when she was in Kindergarten. She started getting tummy aches everyday before school and she would literally make herself sick with worry and have diarrea and throw up. She would cry and say she didn't want to go to school and leave me. Her teacher started calling me during the day and saying she was going to the nurse everyday and trying to come home. This lasted about 5 months. I was so sick with worry! I spoke with several therapists and these were some of the suggestions: At bedtime, we started practicing breathing techniques to calm herself down. We also worked on prayer and wrote down some "worry" scriptures on note cards so that she could read them when she started one of her "panic attacks" (ex.Phil 4:6/Psalms 91:1&2) . I also started telling her positive affirmations in her ear as she was falling asleep each night. I would come into her room as she was just starting to fall asleep, and whisper in her ear "you are a strong, confidant girl. You can do anything, you are able to go to school and leave mommy all day and have a great day. You will come home from school happy. Your tummy will not hurt, you will make it through the day strong and confidant and happy" etc. Just taylor it to your situation. We did this for a couple of weeks and it really started to help. With these techniques and A LOT OF PRAYER, she outgrew this "phase". She is now a well adjusted and confidant 5 grader. We still do positive affirmations occasionally. Good luck and God Bless! This too shall pass....

My niece was adopted at the age of 4 and had seperation anxiety so my sister quit her job but that is not always practical. She did not have a baby until Christina was around 10 years old. That being said, I think children with that problem need a child therapist to get to the bottom of this. There might be some issue that nobody ever thought of. I'm not saying that she had mental problems I'm just saying that sometimes a person without any attachments to her or your family would be easier to talk to. Get a woman for this because she'll probably be more comfortable. Get a therapist and not a psychologist. Therapists have at least a Masters and tend to have their offices more homey and they are more personable. I'm speaking from experience. Psychologists tend to be stuffy. I hope this helps.