Separation Anxiety Question:

Hi Cathy,

My name is Loraine and I have a 6 year old son in Kindergarten who cries, hangs on me, chases me out the door, and will stop in the hallway and refuse to go to class.

He does not cry every day,and this just started in February. August to January I or my 8 year old son would walk him to class and he was just fine. All of a sudden something changed and he now has what I call a meltdown. Teachers say there is nothing going on in the classroom and that this is not like him at all. He does very well with his subjects and other children.

He says that he misses me, which I understand and I tell him that it is OK to miss me but it is not OK to have such a fit. If he feels like he is going to cry to go to the restroom, splash some cool water on his face, take a deep breath and think about something else. He has to control his emotions and go to class.

Since I have a three year old in half a day Pre-K I can go to the Kindergarten class for a couple hours twice a week with my son with the understanding that if he cries when I left or if he cries any of the other days I would not do this again because he is not holding up his end of the deal.

We did this after Spring break, the first day I left class after a couple hours he was happy and OK with everything. The second day, which these two days are Thursday and Friday, when it was time for me to leave he had a meltdown. It is not just that he cries, I and his teachers can handle that. He grabs me and any thing fixed to the floor and will not let go. I have to pry his fingers off of what he is holding onto. He will refuse to walk he will try to run out the door. If I stay in the classroom for a few minutes to see if he calms down, he does but when I try to leave he starts up again.

There is no pattern to this meltdown. The only issue I can find is that this does happen when he is tired. He goes to bed at 8 p.m. and wakes up at 7 a.m. Tonight we are starting his new bedtime at 7:30 p.m. Is there any ideas you have to stop the meltdowns? I hope you can deal with my separation anxiety question!

Thank you,

Loraine

Back to 'Advice Expert Parenting'.

Return to Homepage.