Battling Separation Anxiety

(CBS)  When children go off to school or summer camp for the first time, or when teenagers leave for their freshman year of college, lots of parents and kids experience acute separation anxiety.

It's something that both children and parents experience many times in life and in different situations.

The Early Show discusses the best way to cope with separation anxiety with contributor Lisa Birnbach (whose three children are not yet in college, but have all started school and gone to camp), Dr. Marlin S. Potash and her daughter Laura Potash Fruitman, co-authors of the book "Am I Weird Or Is This Normal?"

Potash is a licensed psychologist, psychotherapist, and organizational consultant. She specializes in adolescence, sexuality and gender issues, and work and relationship concerns.

Fruitman, is an 18-year-old New Yorker. She will start Tufts University in September, and is currently clerking for a judge in Boston. This past summer, Laura spent eight weeks at Harvard University, where she studied calculus, psychology, and law.

According to Potash, separation anxiety is the idea of a young child separating from its mother for the first time at a young age, and being afraid that the mother won't be there when they get back. For young children who don't have the mental cognitive capacity to really understand what's happening, to them it's out of sight, out of mind.

They might think their mother would not exist anymore and they go into a panic. It's normal at a certain place in time for a child to worry if a parent leaves, but if it goes on in an ongoing way for years, then it's not normal.

Birnbach believes separation anxiety exists in many different situations throughout life, starting with when the kids first go to school for the first time.

"When they're very young, the kids go together to preschool, but then in kindergarten they start being encouraged to separate," said Bimbach. "But [at my childrens' schools] parents are invited to be part of the situation, which helps tremendously. The parents get letters, they get invited on class trips, etc. But then it's kind of a rude awakening, because by second grade you can barely find out what they're doing in school."

Potash does not believe females are more prone to experience separation anxiety than males. However, she does think females are allowed to talk about it more.

"If you're a guy, it's a little hard to admit you feel nervous that you're missing your mom," said Potash. "It's not just going away to college. It's the realization that going to college is the beginning of going away for life, and that's what makes it so hard. Although, some kids do cry that they're going to have to do their own laundry."

Potash says dealing with separation anxiety and children should be based on who the children are.

"You have to read a lot of books, which I did. And from the books, I was expecting the kids to go through this anxiety, but they never really suffered from it," said Potash. "I've been to classrooms with my kids on their first day of school and seen kids cling to their parents' legs, and I had none of that with any of my kids - they were ready to go wherever it was."


MAKING THE TRANSITION EASIER

Potash's daughter suggests that parents whose kids are having separation anxiety not call their children all the time, which reminds them that they're away and not at home. Fruitman says parents should be there for the students and talk to them when they call, but don't keep saying they miss them and that they wish they were there, because that would make the students more homesick.

Instead, she says, remind them that what they're doing at college is great, and that they're going to have fun and they'll see them on the holidays.

"Tell them to go out and have fun and not to think about you at home," said Fruitman. "Remind them what they're missing by wasting time on the phone with you, rather than indulge them about what they're missing at home."

In order to help Fruitman adjust easily to college, Potash designed her daughter's summer in Boston this summer. She started her new life a little early and did a mini trial run. She's up there for the summer clerking for a judge, so she has a job which she's proud of and she learns to commute and how to deal with her own banking and where the kids hang out. It is a practice session before attending college full-time.

Fruitman says peer support is just as important in fighting anxiety.

"If my roommate was having trouble dealing with it, I would try to help her by taking her mind off things. I think if you have a network of people you're close to, wherever you're going it makes it easier," said Fruitman. "If I could be there for a friend or roommate and bring her out and do social things and have her find people that she could count on, it might be easier so that she's not always thinking about going home."

To help children get through separation anxiety, Dr. Potash suggests:

• Help your kid pick three goals or objectives they'd like to accomplish in the first month and make them very specific. Maybe they can meet a friend or a person they would like to date. And find one activity that they would like to be involved in. Pick three doable goals, like, going to the library or setting a exercise routine. Then, these things can help make something that seems unmanageable (like leaving for college) to be acceptable.
  
  
• Try one new thing each day and do one familiar thing each day. Try a new food, but call grandma or throw a Frisbee around. That way they're trying new things and adjusting to life, but still having the familiarity that they need to be comfortable.
  
  
• Take 5 minutes a day for quiet, alone reflection time.
  
  
• It's also a good idea to have a phone system figured out ahead of time. Sometimes kids want to know when they can reach the parents. A regular schedule phone call is not necessary but a time when each party is reachable would make life easier.
  
  E-mail is particularly good for communicating. This helps the parents to keep up with the kids' life, as well as the child keeping up with life back home.