Children and Separation Anxiety

When a child bids a teary and tantrum-filled goodbye in their early years it is a very unfortunate event that occurs often. It is not uncommon for a child to develop separation anxiety around their first birthday which means the child gets easily upset when the parent leaves them with someone else.

A normal part of childhood development is supposed to be separation anxiety but it is quite unsettling as well. A person should think up some strategies about how to cope with such situations to help both the parents and the children cope with periods of separation as well as understand what the child is experiencing.

When a child gets separated from caregivers to whom it has become attached and accustomed to having around all the time then separation anxiety will begin to develop. Children will adjust well to circumstance when they are as young as six months old as long as they feel that their needs are being adequately met.

Infants Have No Concept of Time

Object permanence is developed by children between four and seven months and they learn that people exit even when they are out of visible range and this is the time when the child begins games that include dropping things over the side of high objects, looking for them and expecting adults to retrieve them. When the parent leaves this is repeated but during this stage the child's development does not yet understand the concept of time and thus doesn't know when the parent is going to return.

A child becomes more independent when they grow to one year of age but they are still uncertain about being separated from the parent and this is when separation anxiety develops further which results in the child becoming more agitated and upset. From child to child the separation anxiety may vary and some children may have it at a later age and still other only experience it when they are more than two years of age while other children don't experience it.

Many people often wonder how long separation anxiety lasts in the child and the answer is that is varies between children. How well the child and the parent adjust and respond to each other plays a role as well as the temperament of some children which leads them to feel separation anxiety throughout their entire elementary school period. If normal activities are interfered by separation anxiety then it may be seen as a sign of deeper anxiety disorders.

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