Separation Anxiety Was Not What I Wanted to Share

When I was young and living in my fantasy world, I believed I wanted twins, then it became just a son and a daughter, which turned into only one child. I began to worry that if I were to have a daughter, she would acquire too many of my own likenesses and become a mini-me. I had no desire to put a daughter through any of the horrors I had experienced, and I knew it would be inevitable that she would carry at least some of my personality over the course of her life.

My son was eight years old when our new bundle of joy arrived. That daughter was to be mine after all, and I was thrilled to hold my beautiful baby girl. At that first moment of having her warm, sweet little body in my arms, I set aside my worries and fears. How could life be so cruel as to harm this innocent child as it had tortured me?

The Years Went By

I enjoyed every moment of time with my daughter over the next few years. I taught her everything I could imagine and then some. Every new lesson learned was a source of pride for both of us. Her brother was an excellent big brother. Her Dad was the perfect doting father of both his children. Life was rosy. She brought us so much love and laughter, so much pride.

School

As a preschooler, my daughter enjoyed what most other children of non-working mothers enjoyed....a mother who volunteered in class. I was there giving it my all. I loved getting to spend time with her in her new learning environment. I wasn't even over-protective. I allowed her the space to interact with the other children and other adults. I wanted her to be strong and independent, brave, and willing to try the new things life threw at her, while still knowing Mom was in the background. She was thriving.

Along came kindergarten and Mom began to back off a bit. I knew she needed to learn that I would not always be in class, so I slacked off on the volunteering just a tad. I learned to help in the copy room so that I would still be at the school, but I would not be in her sights constantly. I needed to learn to do without her constant presence as much as I needed to teach her to do without mine. It was going well, or so I thought.

Separation Anxiety

By first grade, some signs had begun to develop that I attributed to normal separation anxiety. My daughter was no longer happy to be without me. The sweet, happy child who went to preschool and most of kindergarten with enthusiasm had begun to show signs I had dreaded. It had surfaced from time to time during kindergarten, but not enough to make me feel it would become a full-blown battle. I just knew she would outgrow it.

Not Gonna Happen

While I was determined to believe my daughter would and could overcome this overwhelming dependence upon me, she was just as determined to dig in her heels and not give me the satisfaction that it was just a phase she would outgrow. The fear of my daughter developing the same nightmare I had suffered as a child had surfaced. It reared its ugly head in the worst way. My baby girl was not only showing me she had taken on one of my own worst battles in life, she was also helping me relive the torture I had long-ago forgotten. Relief was not gonna happen anytime soon!

Crying Goodbye Tears

The goodbye tears as I would leave her at the door to school were just as hard for me as they were for her. I hurt knowing that it was tearing her up inside to watch me drive away, knowing how tough it was for her to suffer through that long walk to class. My own anxiety had bothered me so much as a child that I not only pretended to get sick at school, I began to really get sick at school. I wished for any germ that came along to take up residence with me so I could be sent home with a legitimate excuse to miss a school day. I lived for the days we would get to stay home. I would punch myself in the stomach, hoping to make a real pain so my parents wouldn't have trouble believing I really had a problem.

I knew from experience what separation anxiety would do to a child. I would be so nervous as I walked down the hallways with the other students that my hands and stomach would shake. I would throw up some days as the anxiety became too much for me to handle.

Doctors of Old

My parents were not stupid people. They tried taking me to doctors, but they never thought to have me examined for mental connections to my problems. The family doctor finally diagnosed me as having a nervous stomach. I was told by my father that I was too young to have nervous problems. In his eyes, I had not gained enough of life's experiences to know what real problems were. Who ever heard of a child so young having nervous problems?

Back then, psychological problems in young children were not acknowledged as freely as they are today, certainly not in a small town such as the one where I was born and reared. So, I learned by third grade that I couldn't keep fooling my parents or playing on their sympathies. I would have to swallow my insecurities and be a big girl. They couldn't allow me to keep missing school so often.

I would miss at least a day or two a week at first, then it began to dwindle as I saw that my mother had not the means for transportation or gas money to continue to indulge me regular rides home. I can remember riding home with the principal a few times because my mother could not get transportation to the school and my father never missed work to pick me up. I recall spending time in the nurse's office at school, lying on the sick-bed, until she decided I was well enough to return to class.

The Nightmare Continued...

When it began to hit home with me that my daughter was not suffering from normal adjustments to being in school and away from home and mom, I was devastated. Of all the things I could have passed on to my child, why did it have to be separation anxiety?

I tried to take care of it on my own. I talked to her, shared with her, tried to come up with helpful advice and tricks to use to get past the fear. It was evident that she wanted help, she knew she needed help, and tried her best to cooperate. Instead of learning to overcome her fear, what she really learned was how to swallow something that would surface later as an even bigger problem.

No Nights Away from Home

My husband and I had, unfortunately, allowed my daughter to share our bed when she was a toddler. She hung on to this need until she was several years past toddler stage. We didn't encourage it. We tried everything we could think of to discourage this habit, to help her outgrow it, and to combat her dependence on it. It created much grief in our marriage, but we weren't angry with her over it. We were upset that we were the ones who started the practice in the first place. We were upset that we couldn't figure out how to get her to sleep in her own room without bribery, tears, screaming protest, and loss of much-needed sleep for us.

The fear of sleeping alone waned finally even as the other fear escalated. She not only exhibited the fear of separation anxiety at school; she also protested sleeping all night at friends' houses. We were very choosy at whose home we would allow her to stay the night, not only to keep her from being ridiculed, but for our own peace of mind and her safety. We tried to coerce her into lasting all night at the homes of only the parents who could show true compassion. Once again, we were forced to pull out all sorts of tricks to try to help her overcome yet another source of panic.

So Much for That

My daughter became old enough to realize that she was the only child her age who had a problem sleeping all night at a friend's house. She wanted to be normal so desperately. She even tried at one point to make herself last through the night by staying up all night. She decided that even if she couldn't fall asleep, she could at least save us some trouble by waiting until daylight to call home. I thought at first that we had beat the beast. So much for that. When I realized what she had done to overcome her fear, my heart broke. She wasn't cured; she was finding a new way to deal with her problem at the expense of a restful sleep.

So, to relieve my child of yet another burden of not feeling normal, we began to find ways for her to just spend the days with friends or have them at our home for sleep-overs. Eventually, she became old enough that her friends would stay up all night anyway giggling and being silly, so that by the time they were done having fun, she was exhausted enough to grab a few hours of sleep. She was still uneasy about being away all night, but she began to find ways around it to save face.

Middle School Was Not Our Friend

Even though my child was becoming a pre-teen and no longer stood at the school entrance crying at my desertion, she entered her middle school years still battling separation anxiety. These years are said to be some of the toughest of a young child's life as the hormones are beginning to rage, the bodies are beginning to change and confuse them, and friends are suddenly becoming strangers overnight.

These changes are hard enough for a child who suffers the normal fears of life. For mine, they only added to the anxiety. I began to get phone calls several times a week by the end of her 7th grade year. The fact that she was making herself physically ill became evident to me. I was at a loss as to how to combat this terrible burden we had battled ever since Kindergarten. I felt in my heart that the only answer would be to pull my child from school. After all, if we had not won the hard battle by now, we were doomed.

Our Last Chance

We saw homeschooling as our last chance of saving our child from an entirely sad and harmful educational period. The bag of tricks was empty. So, I researched what I had always been totally against. I had believed that homeschooling would be harmful to children because of the lack of social interaction. But for my daughter, it became the only possibility to save her from an even worse fate: a lifetime of illnesses brought on by separation anxiety. Making her attend school all those years had not worked. All our efforts had been in vain. If we couldn't beat it, maybe one-on-one love and attention and school at home was the answer.

So Far, So Good

We homeschooled for four years. It seemed to be the solution to our problems at last. We found ways to socialize with other children, joined a homeschool group, went on field trips with the other parents and children of the group, and made school the most fun we could possibly make it. I rediscovered what it was like to be there as a day-to-day teacher for my daughter. We were both enjoying our new adventures and lifestyle for the most part. There were drawbacks, and as she grew older, she needed my interaction less as a teacher and more as a guide. So, I got a part-time job.

My Mistake

I knew my daughter still had some problems with being away from me, but she was doing so well overall that I overlooked the small stuff. That was one of my biggest mistakes ever. My job was a blessing in many ways, and it even gave me the luxury of having her join me at work to help and to see what I did when I was away from home. She learned new things because of my job, was exposed to a new atmosphere, and even found new activities herself. She became a volunteer at the local hospital along with two other homeschooled friends. She gained a study partner who would swap out with her on whose home they would use to do schoolwork.

Along Came the Boyfriend

My daughter and a boy from our homeschool group became interested in each other. It was an innocent enough relationship: her first boyfriend, his first girlfriend. They were so cute together and seemed to really blossom even more after becoming officially an item. Nervous parents watched over them with caution. At first we allowed them to only do events together with the group, then only at our homes if one or the other set of parents were at home. Finally, they became old enough to drive to a movie or go eat lunch at a local fast food restaurant. The youthful dreamers were talking about future marriage. Not only that, they were in church every time the doors were open and involved in youth activities.

Not A Strange Issue

It may seem odd that within four years of homeschooling, my daughter lost her fear of scary movies completely, her paranoia over separation anxiety, and became old enough to begin dating. The teen years are a fast-paced set of years. She was mature enough to have held down a summer job at a local community center, volunteer work at the local library and hospital, was an excellent student, became outgoing, and seemed to have a good grasp on what she wanted for her future.

Hidden Dangers

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my little girl had lost her separation anxiety only to replace it with an unhealthy dependence on her boyfriend. What later unfurled was to be much worse than separation anxiety. What had appeared to be normal teenage changes and slight rebellion became clear as a much deeper problem.

At this point, the story could take on a dark and dangerous aura, but I would like to keep the focus on separation anxiety. So, I will must leave my audience hanging on the unhealthy dependence issue and point out that all we can do as parents is what we feel is our honest best. I thought I had done my best, thought we had won the battle against the anxiety. But all we succeeded in doing was to allow it to transfer into something else that caused even more problems.

Parents Please Recognize

I implore other parents to please recognize that children who suffer more than normal anxiety of being separated from their loving security need to be taken seriously. My daughter is recovering from the replacement of dependency onto her boyfriend and doesn't seem to have regressed terribly, but her extra need for family closeness and security are still very much evident. Please respect your child's fears and their right to have those fears taken seriously. It isn't a game the child is playing. Consider that he or she isn't exhibiting this behavior to make your life miserable.  It can make life miserable for the child and the parents.  It's very real and needs careful attention, tons of patience, and loads of love and open communication.  Learn to listen carefully to what your child is saying as well as what is not being said, and learn to give proper feedback. If you don't know an answer to a question, suggest that you and your child find out together. Talk to other parents about their own experiences with similar issues.  If you don't know any, at least try to do an internet search and find some. Go to your local library and check out books that you can read together on subjects that relate to the particular problems your child is having.  Brainstorm with your child to figure out ways to overcome their fears, but remember that strong fears take time to overcome.

Don't Put Extra Thorns in the Roses

Parents need to learn how to not add unnecessary problems. Your child doesn't need extra thorns in the roses of life. They will have plenty of mistakes to learn from without the parents making the struggle for courage more of a burden. It is not wrong to make mistakes; it is regrettable to not learn from the mistakes so that they are less likely to be repeated. You can't force your child to overcome such a strong grip from this unwanted visitor called separation anxiety. Once the child learns that it isn't normal behavior, the guilt and shame will be strong. No child wants to be that different from everyone else. It's not something to which we can sarcastically say, "Oh, just get over it, will you?" If only.......