From counselors at lists.onenet.net Wed Nov 9 10:35:56 2022 From: counselors at lists.onenet.net (OSRHEStudent Prep PK-12 Counselor Discussion Board) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2022 10:35:56 -0600 Subject: [Counselors] early childhood student Message-ID: I am needing some fresh ideas. I have a kindergarten male with extreme separation anxiety from mom everyday at morning drop off. Crying, shouting, running to catch mom in the parking lot are some of the daily responses. There was trauma at birth, he was a preemie in neonatal, and parents currently have him medicated. Any ideas on how to help make morning drop off a positive experience will be greatly appreciated! Thank you! -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From counselors at lists.onenet.net Mon Nov 14 09:41:33 2022 From: counselors at lists.onenet.net (OSRHEStudent Prep PK-12 Counselor Discussion Board) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2022 15:41:33 +0000 Subject: [Counselors] Early Childhood Responses Message-ID: I am needing some fresh ideas. I have a kindergarten male with extreme separation anxiety from mom everyday at morning drop off. Crying, shouting, running to catch mom in the parking lot are some of the daily responses. There was trauma at birth, he was a preemie in neonatal, and parents currently have him medicated. * We have a similar student. We manage his mornings by having one of our staff, the same one every day, meet him at the car. Mom never gets out of the car. He typically gets out willingly that way and gets in the building without any issues. If mom walks him to the door or enters the building, he becomes upset when she tries to leave. Of course, there are days he still struggles but most days are good. * Does your school have a service dog? If yes, maybe the dog could meet him at the car and then they could take a short walk. * Is there an older sibling that could walk him in? This helped my youngest when drop off for me took 25 mins and tears to get back out the door. * If your school has ipads let him facetime his mom once a day. Just a thought * I just went to a training with Barbara Sorrells and she talked about having a morning nurture group. I am currently trying it at our district. I would highly recommend going to her training. I would also ask parents what the child is interested in and maybe have some of those things set up in your room, where he comes to you in the morning for 15 min or so and starts his day off there and calm. We had parents who drew a heart on their hand and their childs hand also and told the child every time you push your heart I can feel it and know you miss me and vice versa. It helped our little one with separation anxiety. I don't know if this helps, but that's just some things to think about! * Maybe a picture of mom at his desk or carry something that could have mom's scent on it. If possible, maybe a scheduled call with mom at certain times of the day, with the plan to decrease in frequency. * We have the same problem but it is with dad. As soon as dad leaves he is fine. However if he sees dad hanging around he throws a fit. * I know this is frustrating and heart wrenching....I have used stuffed animals for students that have separation anxiety. Telling the student about the animal and how it needs someone to take care of it for the day. Students seem to like the responsibility and it can take their mind off of their parents. Good luck! * Is mom able to come bring him inside the school? Maybe if she was able to walk him in that would help. From my experience, my own son will often get very upset when he gets dropped off at daycare, but if I bring him in and then get him interested in something that's going on, he forgets I'm there and goes and does his thing. I wonder if that might work for this little guy? * My own child, now 21, had separation anxiety in headstart. It was very devastating to the both of us. We never medicated him though. We talked to him daily. He would come home and tell me he cried for me. He would ride the bus with his older brother and was fine on the bus, but once at school, he cried for me. The school finally let him take his "baby" to school with him. He was attached to a stuffed elephant that he referred to as his baby. This helped tremendously. The teachers said he wouldn't even get it out of his backpack because he didn't want to forget it at school. We went everywhere with that thing. He just had the security of having it with him. Possibly ask if there is an item that he could bring with him that reminded him of home or of his mother. My child knew I was at home and wanted to be with me. I had a home daycare at the time. It took a few months, but we finally worked the issues out. Sabrina Wood Coordinator of Student Preparation for College Readiness Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education swood at osrhe.edu 665 Research Parkway, Suite 200 Oklahoma City, OK 73104 www.okhighered.org/student-prep 405.225.9257 [cid:image001.png at 01D8F80C.26741F30] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 25030 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: