Sudden and surprising seperation anxiety in 3 year old.

[SalsaP]

My just 3 year old DS has started developing separation anxiety. He had a couple of phases of this 12-18 months ago - which I believe is pretty common. He is usually a very confident and settled boy. When we started nursery in September, for example, he not once cried when I left.

This week has been a different story! He sees a CM afternoons a week and goes to private nursery 2 afternoons a week whilst I work. He is been more and more upset at drop off as the week has gone by. Next week, being half term, I won't be working. I had already decided to take him out of the CM but planned to still send him to his 2 nursery sessions as we have to pay for those anyway. After the screaming fit he had at drop off today I'm wondering whether it's best to keep him off nursery altogether next week before this turns into a "thing". On the other hand I'm worried by doing this he may be all the more upset the following week when I go back to work.

What would you do? Thanks!

[Ferguson]

I probably won't offer a suggestion as to what you should do, but as a Teaching Assistant and voluntary helper in primary schools for twenty-five years, I think one just has to accept that babies start to grow up. What parents can do with babies and toddlers at one age, changes as they mature, develop and become more 'aware' of themselves, their environment, and what 'society' expects of them.

Maybe there is some particular incident, a new helper or new child, at nursery, that has unsettled him. Maybe someone just snatched a toy from him. At 3, he might just be old enough to explain why he is reacting like this, or at least maybe give you some clues about it.

Channel 4 recently had an interesting documentary, showing what children get up to in nursery!