"An example of a child with severe social phobia would be one who refused to
go to school for two weeks, said Mark Riddle of the Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine, one of the study's authors. A milder example, he said,
would be a child who went to school and participated in clubs and group
events, but with intense discomfort.
Extreme separation anxiety disorder, he said, would be displayed in a child
who avoided birthday parties and sleepovers. A medium-grade example would be
children who refused to sleep in their own rooms and wanted to get into bed
with their parents."


Well, I guess my daughter who refused to go to school until she was nine
would qualify as "severe." And my son who didn't want to go to sleepovers
until he was ten or eleven would be "extreme." And all four of them would be
medium-grade at least, since they all shared our bed. (And no, I don't
believe for a second that there is anything wrong with any of them.)

I just wrote an article on separation anxiety and interviewed a psychiatrist
in Toronto who specializes in anxiety in children. One of the points she
made was that this is very cultural. In many societies, young children are
expected to be with their parents, especially their mothers, day and night
and this is not an issue. It is our expectation of very early independence -
and our lifestyles that often require children to be in daycare or school
settings from a young age - that makes this a problem. But as she said,
children have to adapt to their society's expectations.

Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario

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