Separation Anxiety is an anxiety disorder, which is usually found in the children. Separation anxiety develops when a child of losing his or her caring people. A child feels himself safe with his primary care giver and therefore shows unwillingness to be detached from his caregiver. Separation anxieties are more common among the infants and toddlers. For the older children the anxiety disorder may cause distress. It affects their social and academic life. The symptoms of separation anxiety are depression, like, sadness, apathy, withdrawal etc. When suffering from separation anxiety the children find it difficult to concentrate in studies and often stay with a fear that their family members may die. As a result of separation anxiety the children get scared to alone in bed and experience nightmares. The children suffering from separation anxiety is approximately 4%. The young boys and girls both suffer from separation therapy though the number of girls suffering from separation therapy is higher than the boys.
Due to separation anxiety a child suffer from excessive distress when separated from the primary caregiver.
They also worry about losing or harm coming to the primary caregiver. The children in such case show recurrent reluctance to go to school or other places because of fear of separation. They experience nightmares and shows unwillingness to go to sleep without the significant adult nearby. In case of separation anxiety the children do repeated physical complaints. The symptoms of separation anxiety begin before 18 years of age. The symptoms of separation therapy last in a child for usually four weeks or longer. The separation therapy keeps bad impact on the academic, social and personal life of an individual.
To overcome the problem of separation anxiety one has to find out safety and trust in the people other than the parents. Sometimes, separation anxiety is overcome but it may come back when one is under stress. In the unfamiliar situation the children seem to suffer from separation anxiety more. The children, when fall sick especially when they are in the hospital and have to go through stress like, pain or illness, they seem to suffer more from separation anxiety. They want the parents beside them and when they don?t get that they stat feeling distressed. To avoid this situation it is helpful for a parent to accompany the child during medical treatments whenever possible. If is not possible then you can give at least a prior exposure to the situation.
The treatment of separation anxiety for the older children may start with counseling the parents and child. Learning about new effective techniques in parenting can help the parents a lot. Some times anti-anxiety medications show good results. For dysfunctional cases the treatment includes, individual psychotherapy, family therapy and family education. For the infants if certain parent caring techniques can be adopted, then separation anxiety can be overcome. The child is prone to separation anxiety more when he is hungry, tired or sick so keeping that in mind the parent should depart from the child after feeding him and after nap. You have to assure him of your return when you are going away from your child. To deal the child suffering from separation anxiety you have to remain calm and be sympathetic.
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