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S3E8 - When Kids Won't Sleep Alone or Panic at School Drop-Off: A Parent's Guide to Separation Anxiety · Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist

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  You're listening to the
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  Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  Hi,
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  I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
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  The Kid Counselor.
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  This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast where I give you insight,
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  awareness,
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  and enlightenment about your parenting
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  and your relationship with your kids.
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  In today's episode,
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  I am answering a question from Ellie.
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  And this question is about both of her kids,
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  9 and 7
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  that are dealing with separation anxiety.
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  We've talked about this in some other listener questions
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  in the past,
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  and I think that this is something that so many families are facing,
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  and
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  this is a pretty significant struggle consistently for a lot of families.
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  And keep in mind
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  separation anxiety is just a manifestation of high levels of anxiety in general.
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  So yes,
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  we can label it as separation anxiety,
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  but at its core,
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  it's not really about the attachment and separation to a figure,
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  it's actually about unmanageable levels of anxiety within the child.
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  So I think it's important to kind of make sense of
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  the bigger picture as well as addressing some of the strategies
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  for dealing with a child really struggling with separation anxiety.
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  So Ellie,
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  thank you so much for the question.
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  I'm gonna read parts of the email and then we will dive in together.
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  Both of my kids 9 and 7 are navigating separation anxiety.
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  It shows up in different ways for each child.
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  My 9 year old feels very nervous when he isn't somewhat
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  close by to my husband or me when we're home together.
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  He will go outside and play by himself,
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  and he can be in other rooms,
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  but if we go outside,
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  he gets really nervous,
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  he feels anxiety about being forgotten at school.
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  My seven year old is struggling with anxiety
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  around sleeping in a different room from us,
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  and school drop-offs are very challenging for her.
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  Both kids began showing signs of anxiety a few years ago,
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  and again they came to form in different ways.
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  We're working with a wonderful play therapist.
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  I'm so happy about that,
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  Ellie,
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  and we've been integrating the pillars
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  of child-centered play therapy into our home life,
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  and we are seeing big integrated transformations.
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  I'm also so encouraged to hear that.
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  Congratulations.
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  I had severe developmental trauma myself,
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  and I can imagine how my own energy and trauma background may have informed this,
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  especially in their early childhood
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  before and while I was processing my experiences in therapy.
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  We also had a very challenging experience with close friends just before COVID.
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  So I'm wondering if these back to back experiences have
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  also signaled to the kids that the world is unsafe.
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  Yes,
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  likely.
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  I'm also curious to learn about more factors
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  that are underneath and behind separation anxiety.
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  I would like to do whatever I can to help
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  my kids build and trust the narrative that they are safe
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  and that they are going to be OK in this world.
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  This feels like some of what is underneath the fear and separation anxiety.
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  All right,
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  so,
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  Ellie,
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  it's interesting you mentioned your own therapy journey
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  because as I was reading your email,
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  I thought to myself,
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  this is somebody that's been therapized.
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  She's really self-aware and insightful.
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  And then you said you've been in therapy.
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  So let me pause and just do a little public service here for a second.
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  I do this on the therapist podcast all the time,
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  not so often on the parenting one,
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  but
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  you really need to be aware
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  of how beneficial therapy would be for you as a parent.
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  Therapy helps you to become a better version of yourself,
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  so that you can be the best parent that you can be,
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  which will help your child become better versions of him or herself.
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  And we talk about this from the clinical side all the time.
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  I,
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  I stress to clinicians every single day,
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  you cannot do this work without doing your own work.
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  So don't think you're gonna go in and provide therapy to
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  a child when you have not done therapy for yourself.
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  It's the same thing with parenting.
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  I have been in therapy,
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  the most effective parents are the ones that have processed their own stuff.
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  So public service announcement,
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  I highly recommend exploring therapy for you
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  because as you become a better version of yourself,
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  as you sort through your own junk.
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  It makes you able
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  to better serve and support your children
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  as they become better versions of themselves and they work through their junk.
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  So it very much goes together
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  and I can always tell the parents when parents come in and meet with me,
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  I can always tell parents that have been in therapy.
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  It's so obvious,
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  it's so evident,
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  and I,
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  my,
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  my first thought is usually,
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  oh,
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  these people have been therapies,
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  and I love working with those kinds of families because
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  There's self-awareness,
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  there's insight,
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  there's
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  the desire and willingness to support the therapeutic process.
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  There's so many components that emerge after someone
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  has been in therapy as an adult.
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  So
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  that's an encouragement.
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  Ellie,
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  back to your questions,
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  I think you already have really helpful
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  perspective and awareness of what's going on,
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  but I'll just kind of punctuate that a little bit.
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  So yes,
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  it makes sense that your children are
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  going to present their separation anxiety differently.
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  Because every child that is anxious is going to find their own coping.
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  Now granted,
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  it's maladaptive coping.
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  If you have to have someone close to you,
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  if you won't do something without someone else,
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  if you don't want to go somewhere because you're worried,
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  that's maladaptive coping,
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  but it is in fact a coping strategy that kids employ,
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  and they're going to determine what feels better for them.
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  So your son is going to cope in one way,
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  your daughter's going to cope in another way.
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  That's a very consistent pattern.
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  And keep in mind
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  when you have high levels of anxiety.
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  children cope with anxiety by trying to control things.
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  And here's how this works.
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  This is,
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  we,
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  we talk about this in
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  in the therapeutic world as parallel tracks.
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  In other words,
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  when you feel anxious,
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  you feel out of control.
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  You feel that you have no power,
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  and you feel that you are at the mercy of your circumstance.
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  The world is unpredictable,
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  people are unpredictable,
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  circumstances can't be controlled.
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  And so a child's view of an unpredictable,
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  unstable world.
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  Ends up making them say,
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  well,
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  I'm going to control what I can control then.
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  And these are very consistent
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  combinations.
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  In other words,
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  you have a highly anxious child that wants to have
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  control over things over which they can have control.
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  Now,
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  the interesting component of this is children only
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  have control over a handful of things.
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  And so therefore
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  they don't really have a whole lot of things
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  that
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  they really could exact any control,
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  however,
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  they're going to grasp at any measure that they can
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  and therefore in both of your children's cases,
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  they are trying to control who is with them,
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  where they are,
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  where they're willing to go.
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  That's
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  a very consistent pattern.
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  The other options,
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  just to name a few,
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  are eating,
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  sleeping,
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  toileting,
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  so there are only a handful of things over which kids have control,
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  and because of this,
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  your children have learned probably organically at some point.
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  In other words,
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  they got really nervous.
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  They came to find you.
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  So let's go back to your son.
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  Maybe at one point
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  you were out in the front yard.
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  And something happened that made him really nervous or uncomfortable,
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  and he was like,
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  oh my gosh,
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  mom and dad aren't around.
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  That was a natural organic reaction.
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  I got scared,
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  mom and dad weren't in the house.
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  I don't like this feeling.
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  I don't want that to happen again.
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  That just naturally evolved,
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  but now it has become a habitual conditioned pattern of response.
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  I'm going to make sure that nothing bad will happen to where I feel like I'm alone,
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  so I will not let them go outside.
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  Let's go to your daughter.
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  She is concerned
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  about
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  sleeping in a different room from you all.
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  I guarantee you at one point she woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare
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  or she heard a noise or she was trying to fall asleep and
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  she started thinking about something that worried her and she got nervous.
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  And she felt alone and she hated that feeling and she
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  went into your room and she felt comfort and she felt safe
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  and she felt protected.
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  So now she has conditioned what once was just
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  a specific situation.
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  Now she's conditioned herself to think I feel so much safer and more protected and
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  more comfortable when I'm in the same room as mom and dad at night.
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  So this is how this evolves for children.
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  Many times we miss as adults
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  that this just kind of fell into the scenario.
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  No child ever says,
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  watch this.
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  I'm going to refuse to sleep in my own bed,
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  just to irritate mom and dad.
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  That's never how it goes.
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  It was just a circumstance that ended up into a pattern.
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  So when we see this,
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  obviously it makes sense your son would
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  be concerned about being forgotten at school.
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  That would be an awful scenario if you feel like someone didn't pick you up.
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  It makes sense that your daughter
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  doesn't want to be dropped off at school cause then she doesn't get to be with you.
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  All of this makes sense in terms of very high levels of anxiety.
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  And
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  to speak to your own trauma,
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  and as you were working through that,
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  maybe that was passed on,
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  potentially,
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  but we know that there's a nature and a nurture component to scenarios like this.
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  Therefore,
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  your kids might have been born with a predisposition to anxiety.
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  Which means it's always been there,
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  kind of dormant and under the surface,
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  and then the experiences and circumstances
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  have spiked it.
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  That's what it sounds like to me.
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  I suspect they have an anxious bent in general.
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  And then because of the circumstances,
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  because of you working through your own stuff,
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  the,
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  the issue that you had with friends before COVID,
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  probably some of these scary experiences that happened when they were trying
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  to go to sleep or when they were in the house,
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  all of this has
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  programmed and made them connect the dots.
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  That
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  oh my goodness,
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  this is really overwhelming for me.
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  Now here's another component since you mentioned
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  you're working with a play therapist,
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  as children build emotional vocabularies,
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  they are less overwhelmed by anxiety
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  because they start to understand their body sensations more,
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  they start to understand their emotions more,
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  they start to be able to communicate their emotions so they can get their needs met.
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  All of these things happen
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  in therapy,
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  so the anxiety will naturally
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  reduce,
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  self-confidence will naturally increase,
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  and when a child feels better about him or herself,
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  they feel that they can handle
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  worrisome scenarios more effectively.
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  So those work in tandem just like anxiety and control go together,
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  anxiety and self-esteem go together.
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  So your children will naturally start working on this stuff through play therapy.
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  So I'm very,
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  very excited for you all that you're working with a play therapist.
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  But as far as the factors that are underneath it.
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  One of the really helpful rules of thumb that we talk about is
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  what's most important is not what a child knows,
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  but what a child believes.
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  So when you enlarge that to anxiety,
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  when you enlarge that to self-esteem,
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  when you enlarge that to coping and resilience.
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  No matter what you do,
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  Ellie,
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  you can tell them every day how brave they are.
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  You can tell them every day how competent they are.
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  You can tell them every day that they are capable of anything.
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  You can tell them every day that the world is safe.
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  You can tell them every day that you will do everything you can to keep them safe,
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  and they will know those things.
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  But they know that from without.
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  In other words,
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  from the outside coming toward them from you,
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  they learn that from within,
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  they don't believe it.
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  So until a child works through their own stuff.
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  And they face the junk that they need to face in the playroom.
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  It's not
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  what a child knows,
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  it's what a child believes.
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  Right now your kids believe that they can't handle things,
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  that they don't have the coping and the strategies,
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  that the world is too overwhelming,
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  that the world is too scary,
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  that they don't know how to
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  navigate all of the unknowns.
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  That's what they believe right now.
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  They will work that out in therapy.
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  They will start to believe that they are resilient,
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  they will start to believe that they can problem solve,
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  they will start to believe they can handle anything.
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  Why?
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  Because they'll practice doing those things in the playroom.
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  So when you say you would like to help your kids build and
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  trust the narrative that they're safe and they're going to be OK,
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  they have to believe that for themselves.
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  You can do what you can do from your side of it,
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  from without.
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  You can absolutely instill those things and communicate those things,
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  but when the child believes it,
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  that's when it will actually change the
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  perspective and that will change the behavior.
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  So it's a both and so you're going to handle it from your side,
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  they're gonna handle it from their side,
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  and it's all going to come together in gel.
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  And then they will absolutely
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  believe that they can handle anything,
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  and it will shift from,
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  oh no,
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  what if,
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  which is the anxious kid's mantra,
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  oh no,
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  what if?
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  Oh no,
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  what if I get left at school?
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  Oh no,
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  what if I can't sleep by myself?
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  Oh no,
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  what if mom and dad are outside?
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  Oh no,
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  what if,
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  fill in the blank.
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  It shifts from that
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  to,
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  I hope that doesn't happen,
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  but I'll be OK.
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  And that changes the whole trajectory of their life forever,
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  because even into adulthood,
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  they will carry that with them.
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  That's a very powerful internal dialogue for a child to gain early on.
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  I hope whatever the scenario is doesn't happen.
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  But if it does,
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  I'll handle it.
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  I'll figure it out.
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  I'll problem solve.
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  I'll be OK.
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  That's where they're moving toward.
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  And that's what the therapeutic process helps them to realize.
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  So Ellie,
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  thank you so much for the question.
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  If you all would like to reach out to me,
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  I would love to hear from you,
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  brenna@thekidcounselor.com.
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  I love y'all.
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  Have a great week.
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  We'll talk again soon.
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  Bye.
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  Thank you for listening to
• 14:01
  the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  For more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter,
• 14:09
  please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.