Take a look at this little girl’s heartbreaking reaction when her dad forgets to give her a hug and a kiss before he leaves for a short walk. She will definitely pull at your heartstrings!
“Separation anxiety can happen almost overnight, which makes it shocking to parents,” says Sara Abbot, associate director of the Family Resource Counseling Center in Los Angeles. It is often not just a one-time, babyhood phase for many kids. The tears and fears related to being apart from the parents can resurface in the toddler and preschool years, posing new challenges and warranting different solutions.
As discouraging as that may sound, it can be very helpful to remember that separation crisis is completely normal, even healthy. “From the earliest years of life, we should want children to encounter ordinary adversity because it’s practice for building resilience,” says Aaron Cooper, Ph.D., coauthor of
