The Anxious Child
5
the mother waits in the hall. After 10 minutes, the child would met mom and go home. The time would be increased as the child became more comfortable in the classroom. Slowly the child becomes conditioned to being in the class and the alarm stops going off. The time should be increased slowly so not to cause a setback. A large faced timer should be placed next to the child so that they can see that the time is passing. This helps the child develop a cognitive sense of a beginning, middle and end. Other examples of desensitizing your child to school would include walking with mom in the halls and visiting the classroom, library, gym, bathroom and music room. Staying after school playing on the school grounds would help to desensitize your child to outside. If playing outside at recess and lunch with more than 1 child is an issue, staying after school and playing with a small group of five would desensitize your child to feeling comfortable playing in small groups at lunch. Children with anxiety feel more comfortable with mom and dad around and can acquire more skills for the times they have to separate from mom and dad. Using systematic desensitization is the best place to start before introducing cognitive approaches such as talking back to your worries and removing one's worries from one's self. Young children around 4
to 5 may not yet have the ability for abstract thinking (the ability to think of things as not the here and now and what is physically seen or touched.) E.g. the thought of removing one's worries from one's self and putting them in a worry box.) Teaching your child to breath in a deep breath and blow out slowly can help reduce stress during separation. There are things you can do in the home, at parks and small groups to help your child desensitize to separating from you. Page 6 has a list of suggestions. Always be honest about leaving and reassure your child that you will be back to pick them up. Even though sneaking out is easy for you, it creates more anxiety for your child.
Remember it is one day at a time - one step at a time. Break everything down into baby steps and tackle one behavior at a time.
A Child's Story-Going to School with Anxiety