When they will not let you leave
They were fine with anyone. Then one Tuesday you put them down at care and they will not let go of your leg. That shift is common, and it is not a report card on how attached you are.
Separation anxiety is the fear of being away from the people who care for them. Crying, clinging. Raising Children calls it a normal piece of development.
It can begin around 6 or 7 months and peak around 14 to 18 months, then fade through the early years. Stranger fear sits beside it. New faces upset them.
Both make a rough sense. This is the age they start to move. A baby who could crawl off and felt nothing about separation would get lost.
The cling is a safety system with bad timing.
The mistake is to cancel every separation so nobody cries. Avoiding it keeps it in charge. The work is small goodbyes that grow.
If the place is new, a relative, care, preschool later, spend time there with them before you leave them in it. Familiar room, familiar person. Let them take something from home, a cloth or a toy, and retire it slowly once the place is known. Tell the adult what you are doing so they do not undo it with a different ritual.
When you leave, say so. Even a baby gets the sentence. I am going, I will be back.
Leaving in silence feels clever until they notice, and the next time is harder. Start a small game or a snack, say goodbye briefly, and go. A long lingering goodbye teaches them that protest might still work.
Your face stays ordinary. If you look gutted, they read the building as unsafe. You can be gutted in the car.
At home, practise. Another adult holds them while you go to the kitchen and come back. Short, then longer.
No jokes about being a sook, and no she's such a mummy's boy. The page is explicit that mockery makes it worse. Stories about a small animal who did not want to leave can help older toddlers feel less odd.
When they manage a minute, you notice it. Attention for the brave bit, not only for the scream.
Child care days will still be loud at the door. You do the same goodbye. You come back when you said.
Reliability is the treatment. If the distress is huge, lasts, and stops ordinary life well past the age the page says it usually eases, talk to the nurse or GP rather than deciding you have failed. For the common version, you are the man who leaves clearly and returns.
Source: Raising Children Network