My daughter has been suffering from anxiety for a while, and we decided to get her some private counseling. It's not crippling anxiety and many people would have no idea that she frets about stuff – but I was an anxious child and I wish now that I had been given some tools for building self-confidence.
Anyway, my daughter has had several sessions and seems to really like the therapist. After the last session, she told me the therapist thought she might have felt 'abandoned' as a child – as a result of my daughter saying she used to cry at nursery (in response to some probing questions about her early memories).
Now, I'm self-employed and was lucky enough to be able to bring my daughter up at home – so she only went to nursery from the age of 3 or so, and for just a couple of half-days a week. I guess she may have felt upset at nursery, and she can remember this, but surely that's part of growing up and separating from your parents. (And I know for a fact that although she cried at drop-off time, she also enjoyed the sessions!)
I suppose the counsellor was pointing out that children can feel a sense of abandonment and that's fine. But I also feel like she was sort of putting ideas in my daughter's head – probably without appreciating that she was never a full-time nursery child.
To top it off, she also asked my daughter if she was breastfed, and this has really put my hackles up. She was as it happens, but if she'd said 'no', what then? It feels like the counsellor was trying to make this a possible cause for her anxiety – and it could have led to my daughter feeling that I'd failed her in some way. Surely that's an inappropriate question? Or am I over-thinking it?