11 year old DD separation anxiety

[Readingislife]

What do I do since Xmas daughter cries every Sunday regarding not wanting to go school. Every day she's crying and saying she will miss me.
Everything is good at school.
Nothing is the problem just she's going to miss me.
She starts secondary in Aug 26.
She even has to sleep on my bedroom floor. Which I have limited to weekends but get the tears and up and down with her all night when she's in her room.
She did go through a hormonal spurt around Xmas but this is getting stupid.
I have always been protective of her and she is a real mummies girl and she is a very young 11 whom I'm trying to install confidence into her but failing. My DH says I've molly coddle her to much and I need to be cruel to be kind. She doesn't do anything for herself. I don't know what to do or who to turn too for advise. Any help please?
AIBU to seek help?

To be honest I don't think everything is good at school if she has suddenly started crying every Sunday because she doesn't want to go. Have you spoken to the teachers?

My DD9 was too scared to be alone in a room for years. We slept in her room for all those years and now she has grown out of It though she goes through phases where she sleeps in our bed for a few nights especially when she has read something scary. However It might be different as It It wasn't separation anxiety as such. She was just scared of being alone and she was happy for any human to give her company.

One thing that I feel has helped has been to never shame her for being scared and for explaining that fear is a perfectly normal emotion that helps us stay safe. It is ok to be scared but when we know that there is no danger it's good to try to power through the unpleasant feelings so they don't hold us back. Otherwise she'd have to battle with both the fear and the fear of being afraid.

I don't think you need to be cruel or harsh to be kind. You just need to be kind. But yes I get how disabling this is both for you and your dd.

Anyway I think the first step is to find out what is going on at school.

Because she won't! No confidence to do anything. I ask her to buy things I shops she won't speak to others. Etc that's what I meant. No self confidence even with encouragement and/or supervision. She hasn't always been like this though.

I should have mentioned things are great at school apart from her arriving tearful. Parents evening was good, teacher says she's fine once she gets in school and gets going. Friendship circle is good.

We had similar with my daughter when she was around 8, although it was stomach aches before going to school rather than tears. It took me ages to work out what was wrong as school said everything was fine and we put it down to separation anxiety and it was post-Covid.

And mostly it was anxiety and most things were fine at school although it subsequently came out that part of her high levels of anxiety were coming out at hiding in the toilets and school hadn’t noticed. this was at a small primary school, classes of 22.

My DD was diagnosed as autistic about 6 months later off the back of the anxiety which came out of nowhere. She had always been an outgoing and confident child up until the age of 8. Although she had always been quite quirky so I wasn’t entirely surprised by the diagnosis. I only mention this because ASD can be very subtle in girls and my daughter is ‘young’ first her age in lots of ways. It is very common for girls to be able to mask successfully until the get older. The transition to secondary school can be where the wheels start to fall off.
Worth reading around the subject if only to rule out, of course some children are just shy and anxious without neurodivergence and this can change over time.

Ask your daughter what might make her feel safer when you are not there. You could each draw a heart on your wrist which she can press during the day and know it connects her to you even when you aren’t there - this can be a helpful strategy for some. Or a special pebble in her pocket she can rub. Transitional objects can really help.