Dear Al:

Wikipedia: “Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is an anxiety disorder in which an individual experiences excessive anxiety regarding separation from home and/ or from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment (e.g., a parent.. According to the American Psychiatric Association, separation anxiety disorder is an excessive display of fear and distress when faced with situations of separation. The anxiety that is expressed is categorized as being atypical of the expected developmental level and age… The duration of this problem must persist for at least four weeks.. to be diagnosed as SAD in children…

A child with SAD may protest profusely upon arrival at school.. have a hard time saying goodbye to their parents.. tightly clinging to the parent.. They might scream and cry but in a way that makes it seem as though they are in pain. The child might scream and cry for an extended period of time after his or her parents are gone.. and refuse to interact with other children or teachers, rejecting their attention”.

www. anxiety. org/ parent-child-separation-trauma-ptsd-and-recovery-in-children: “children are, evolutionary speaking, hardwired to respond to separation from their parents as though it were a matt4er of life or death. In fact, the visible pain and fear that children experience during periods of separation are only part of the story. What remains unseen by the naked eye are the drastic spikes in stress hormones that take place within children’s bodies following separation from their parents, essentially preparing them to fight or flight from this perceived danger.

While children typically recover quickly from the emotional and physiological sequela of brief episodes of separation, extended separation can exhaust children’s bodies and brains”.

* My comment: much of the economy in the western world is based on having as many people (men and women, fathers and mothers) as possible generating and spending as much money as possible. Daycare centers,, preschools and kindergartens make a stronger economy possible. Many children pay a high price for a stronger economy, experiencing overwhelming anxiety at being separated daily from their parent before they are ready for it.

What you will see in lots of the writings by mental health professionals, as well as hearing from daycare/ kindergarten professionals and employees, neighbors, family members,  parents.. almost everyone, is that they downplay the severe and physically damaging distress caused to children when being separated from their parents for a daily eternity, every day, for months and longer when they are not ready for such separation.

For the child separated, his subjective experience during the day shifts from incredible dread to disassociation to exhaustion, back to dread and so forth, and that dynamic results in physical damage (visible or invisible, detected or not) of many kinds.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by .
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by .