423. Q&A: Why does my child follow me from room to room?

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello, welcome back to the Beyond the Session segment of the Securely Attached podcast, and we are going to be answering a listener question and I have Dr. Emily Upshur here. Hi, Em.

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:53):

Hey.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:54):

How are you today?

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:55):

I am good. I’m ready. What are we talking about?

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:57):

We’re ready. Are you ready for this question?

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:59):

Yes.

Dr. Sarah Bren (01:01):

Okay. So this parent writes in. This is the title of their question. How to help my five-year-old daughter with separation anxiety. It is to the point she tells me and my husband, she misses us when we go to another room. I don’t want to make her feel worse about this, but I want to learn how to support her through this. Telling you like, “I miss you when you leave me. ” It’s so hard to be like, “You can handle this.”

Dr. Emily Upshur (01:29):

Exactly. I think it’s actually more common though. The separate rooms thing seems to come up so much in my practice and…

Dr. Sarah Bren (01:38):

In my house. I cannot get my kids to go. I was joking the other day, but actually this is perhaps useful information for you, parent listener. One, to normalize that this is like legit, difficult and something that … Okay. I think there are certainly times where this is a sign of anxiety and we could talk about this from an anxiety lens and I think we definitely should and we will. I also think that there is something magnetic about you and when your kids are with you in the house and they know you’re home and they just … It’s like we’re a homing beacon or something.

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:16):

Like a magnet.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:17):

I know. But I’ve actually, because I’ve realized this with my own kids, I’ve switched something around recently that I’ve found really helpful, which is instead of when I’m trying to get my kids to do something, like get dressed, go downstairs, get breakfast and get ready for … It’s usually like getting up and out in the morning or getting up and to bed. So it’s like, go downstairs, get ready, get your backpack, packed, eat some breakfast, whatever, or go upstairs, take a shower, brush your teeth, get ready for bed. When I am shooing them away from me to do a task…

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:57):

Not going with them.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:58):

It doesn’t work very well. But when I put myself in the place I want them to go and I say, “Come do this thing,” it works so much better. So I have started to leverage my … I know. I’m like leveraging my presence, my magnetic presence to get them to do things that otherwise I get a lot of resistance on. And it’s not like I’m trying to do it for them. It’s not like I’m like, “Oh, I will take you upstairs and I will turn on the shower and I will get you … ” I’m not facilitating the task at all. It’s more like if I’m in the kitchen downstairs and I tell them to go upstairs and get in the shower, they just will ignore me. But if I go upstairs and I call from upstairs, I’m like, “Hey guys, come up and take a shower.”

(03:53):

They zoom up and then I just disappear. I walk away, but now they’re in the shower. It’s like I’m herding cattle around my house, but one thing is to think about how do you leverage your magnetism to get them where you’re trying to get them to go? It’s not quite what this parent is asking, but…

Dr. Emily Upshur (04:17):

Well, I also think you brought up a really good point, which this parent doesn’t say that there’s a time of day or something, but I do find the same. I think if I’ve been at work all day, my kids are more attacked, like they want to just sort of shuffle around my chores, the house with me, like a little teeny fish on a barnacle or something. They’re just sort of around, but if I’m around all day on a Saturday, it’s a little less intense. So I think it is important to look at the sort of ebbs and flows of this. I think from the sense I get from this question from this parent, it has a flavor of a little bit more anxiety, but at the same time to normalize it, just like you said, I think this is a thing. This is a thing and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re super worried or that they have separation anxiety.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:11):

Right. So let’s answer this piece from the place. There’s two ways we can go here. I think we talked a little bit already about thinking about this not necessarily in a separation and anxiety in of itself and just trying to kind of see if we as a family system can kind of stretch these skills and also kind of accept these realities too to some degree and kind of lean in rather than try to fight against it. I think that a lot of this, them wanting to be near us is really normal. Let’s pivot though and think about this in the context of a kid who has separation anxiety challenges kind of across the board. They have a hard time saying goodbye in the morning to go to get on the bus or to drop off at school. They have a hard time separating from you at dance class or birthday parties and it’s playing out in lots of different places and even at home we’re struggling if we want to be in a different room or need to be in a different room, that she’s not just having stress around this, but she’s articulating things like, “I miss you.

(06:26):

“There’s almost like a … I could see a world in which this child is using, not on purpose, but kind of soliciting feelings of guilt or maybe they’ve learned that when I push those buttons, my parents feel really like way more responsive and reassuring of me when I’m like, “I miss you. ” If they scream, “Come here, I need you. ” Versus, “I really miss you and I’m so sad.” I think they elicit different responses and certain responses can be more reinforcing than others inadvertently.

Dr. Emily Upshur (07:08):

Well, this is definitely lovely. So you might unbigettingly give in, you might unbigely being like, “I miss you too. I’ll hang out with you. ” It doesn’t help you stretch as much, right? It sort of is, you’re right, it does elicits a different response, but it’s similar underlying issue so I think that it’s important to catch that as well.

Dr. Sarah Bren (07:29):

Right. And so this parent is saying, “I don’t want to make her feel worse about this. ” And I think we can really name that for the kid like, “Ugh, it’s really hard to miss me when I go to this other room.”

Dr. Emily Upshur (07:42):

If we did one thing alone, I think that is super helpful. You’d be surprised at how helpful it is instead of avoiding it saying like, “Oh yeah, that’s hard. I miss you too sometimes.”

Dr. Sarah Bren (07:54):

Yeah. So we’re kind of just greeting that sadness about this separation or distress or anxiety or whatever it is. We’re greeting that with kind of some neutrality, but we’re acknowledging it. So we’re not reacting to it by turning it off. We’re not rescuing her from the missing us. We’re also not dismissing it. We’re not saying like, “Oh, I’m just in the other room. It’s not a big deal.” Right? Which again would be normal thing to say. I certainly would probably have said that 5,000 times, but I’m just trying to think about in my most A- game parenting moment, I’m going to probably shoot for really neutral, really kind of unruffled like, “Ugh, yeah, I can see why you would miss me when I go to the other room. That’s hard. I’m going to see in about … Why don’t we set a time or 30 seconds?” I could be a little playful, a little goofy, levity can be really helpful.

(08:52):

That’s a bit of an exposure though, because if I make a game out of 30 seconds and then I jokingly race around and I say like, “Oh, how many more seconds do I have? Oh gosh, I got to hurry up and unload this dishwasher.” And then I run back in and I’m panting and I’m sweating and I’m being goofy. All of a sudden we just gave her a 30 second stretch of separation inside the zone of play and she survived it, but she also and her system registers that that was something she can handle, but we didn’t have to make it like a really serious thing.

Dr. Emily Upshur (09:27):

I think the same thing works in the other direction actually and I think it works almost to your point, like a distraction from the stressor. I’ll say, “Oh, I’m going to put on a timer. Let’s see if you can go take that shower, go upstairs and take that shower. I’m putting on the timer.” There’s a little bit of like breaking this cycle of just babysitting the worry of like, I call it jazz hands over here.

Dr. Sarah Bren (09:53):

The only problem with that though, and I agree, I love that strategy. I really do. But I have found with my own kids where I get in trouble with strategies like that is it relies on them going upstairs and if they’re really resistant, we just start end up fighting about them not listening to me part instead of practicing the stretch. So I tend to prefer to do, I’m going to set a timer and I’m going to go unload the dishwasher and let’s see if you can handle missing me until I’m back and let’s see if we’re okay when I get back.

Dr. Emily Upshur (10:24):

Well, you’re bringing up an important point, which is like, where are you? We’re doing a little bit of an assessment, right? What can your child handle? Can they handle 30 seconds? Can they not handle it at all? We have to sort of know where, because I think it’s warranted to not start too low, right? And I think you want to meet your child just where their stretch point is. Like you want to stretch them just a little bit, not too below them, not too above them so that it’s achievable, but I think a lot of parents, I imagine, like you said, I loved how you said that in the beginning, like sending your children off. You’re usually doing that for a reason. I have to finish cleaning the kitchen, you go take a shower, multitasking. Great. We’re all winning. Yay. And they’re like, no.

Dr. Sarah Bren (11:11):

My kids have such a hard time with that and I somehow don’t learn that that’s not going to work. I want it so badly to be something they’re capable of doing and I get so irritated, but I really do in my … Again, I have a moderate batting average. I am not always showing up in my A game parenting at all. If I have the same fights with my kids over and over and over again and there’s like this little part of me that like flies up above and like watches me and is like, “You know this isn’t going to work. Why do you think that this is one day going to just magically change? You know you need to scaffold this ski and I’m just stubborn and I don’t, I just want them to be able to go upstairs.”

Dr. Emily Upshur (11:50):

One day, Sarah, it might work because that has happened in my house where I can now do, you’re absolutely right. I didn’t used to be able to go, I’m putting on the timer, go get upstairs. I used to have to go bring myself upstairs and do the same thing, but I can now I can say.

Dr. Sarah Bren (12:07):

Is that an age thing or was that like a magical skill acquisition that they got on their own and they just hit some threshold? What you do to make that happen?

Dr. Emily Upshur (12:16):

That’s a good question. I think it is about, like I said before, stretching them little by little to … So I don’t want to skip steps. I want to start with what you’re saying, depending on where they are, I want to start with like, okay, I’m in control of myself, I’m going to busy myself or I’m going to move over here, I’m going to do over here, then I’m going to move and call you, right? Then I’m going to stay and see what you can do. Then I’m going to up that annie one more time. Again, after plateau, you got this skill now You totally got the staying in the room or the 30 seconds is totally easy peasy, like you’ve got this, I’m going to move up to the next skillset, right? And I think you have to sort of create yourself a little bit of like, where am I going with this? But break it down into tiny, tiny little, little steps.

Dr. Sarah Bren (13:03):

And I think for what I’m getting frustrated with myself is I know that I need to do that, break it down into steps and I’m not, I don’t want to. I want them to just go up so I keep just commanding them to go up and I’m not practicing the steps and then I keep getting into this every night, every night I’m like, and I get into this whole thing with them where I’m like, “You guys, I need all of us to be able to multitask. If I’m doing the dishes and you’re doing shower and toothbrushing, we’re saving time. We’re both doing things at the same time.”

Dr. Emily Upshur (13:34):

They don’t care. Why are you saying this to them?

Dr. Sarah Bren (13:36):

I’m like, “Can’t you get it? ” Because the thing is, I’m like, that’s my magic motivator is time maximizing my time and being efficient because I got too much to do. Their motivator, they could not care less about maximizing time and being efficient and multitasking. Their motivator is, “I want to be near you.”

Dr. Emily Upshur (14:00):

Although I will say that you really could work with that, because if your motivator is all that stuff’s done so you can do a nice tuck-in at the end of the night, it’s not hurried. I think as your children, again, as you move up that challenge ladder, you might be, and they developmentally grow, you might be able to tap into that, “Hey, if you do this, we’ll have more time for me to read to you tonight.”

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:25):

Right. But I think what I probably need to do is I need to have that conversation with them way before, not way before, maybe even like five minutes before I start unloading the dishwasher and like give them the command to go, like the directive to go upstairs. I need to be like, before I put the demand on them, I have to kind of connect with them and say, “Hey guys, what is like the most fun thing that we want to do? What do we want to make sure we have time tonight to do before bed upstairs as we’re unwinding.” They love dance party. This is like the thing they always want to do. If I go to them and I say like, “Hey, what do you guys want to do tonight to wind down for bed that feels like fun and special?” I know they’re going to say dance party and then they say dance party and I say, “Okay, so if we want to have a dance party, what time is it?

(15:16):

It’s blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and we need let’s say 15 minutes for dance party.” Okay so that means we have about 15 minutes before like to do like brush teeth and get pajamas on. I have about 10 minutes of like get the dishes in the dishwasher before I can come upstairs. If you guys can go up now and spend the next 10 minutes brushing your teeth and getting your pajamas on, I think I can meet you up there and we’ll have a five extra minutes for dance party. So that would be 20 minutes for dance party. Does that sound like a good plan to you? Okay, so what’s your plan? What do you have to do first? Oh, I got to do the boat. I’m like, all right guys, should we set a timer? What do you need to do? Now I go.

(16:02):

Instead of starting with, guys, go upstairs and get ready for bed. I’ve started with connection, future like plan, like casting the vision, getting their buy-in. And then I explain the timing and then I explain the breakdown of the time management. I explain what has to get done by both of us and then I give them an incentive. I realizing I’ve been totally holding out on my own self. I got to do this. It’s so easier.

Dr. Emily Upshur (16:33):

I’m so glad we could report back. I’m so glad we solved this problem.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:35):

Yeah, I’m glad I … Glad this woman, this parent sent us a question that I totally am now answering my own other unrelated question. So thank you. Thank you, Emily.

Dr. Emily Upshur (16:47):

I think it’s a really good point though, because that is how I do it and you articulated it. I break it. I start with what’s the goal? Where are we getting? Can we get there together? What part can we get together on that? And then what do we each need to do on our sides? Also, that collaborative problem solving sort of gets … The buy-in actually is quite important. So this moment, this child has no buy-in to be in a different room from her parents, right? So we have to figure that out. Is there buy-in? Can we figure it out? Can we help build something around that that feels incentivizing? That’s really helpful, this kiddo.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:26):

Yeah. And if this … I realize we’re kind of talking about a lot of different ways that this can play out, whether it’s just really about them wanting to be near you versus it being on the other end of the spectrum, like a lot of separation anxiety that’s kind of showing up in lots of other places. What I will do too is link in the show notes a bunch of other episodes that we’ve done around specifically like strategies for scaffolding and introducing sort of exposures and like separation anxiety related strategies with kids. We use a lot of strategies that come from a therapy modality called space, supportive parenting for anxious childhood emotions. So that’s a really good place to start if you are finding that going from room to room in your house is really, really stressful for your child and it’s activating a lot of their anxiety and we’re accommodating that anxiety and rescuing them from that feeling by really not leaving and not pushing that separation or avoiding it.

(18:35):

Then I think there’s a larger strategy at play and I will link all those episodes that are a few of those episodes we’ve done around that because I do think that’s a useful kind of place to start. I mean, I think all the stuff we talked about can really be useful as well, but a lot of what we talked about is kind of rooted in the same ideas of space too, which is validate that it’s hard and communicate some confidence. They can handle that, break it down into small things that are related to what you can control, your behaviors like you going to another room versus forcing them to do it and then kind of stretching and building upon that stretch over time. So I hope that this is helpful and thank you so much for writing in this question and we’ll talk to you all soon. Bye Em.

Dr. Emily Upshur (19:28):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:30):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.