Separation anxiety is a horrible and debilitating condition that affects people of all ages. But it is when the anxiety affects your daily life that it becomes a problem. But what do you do? How do you fix it? Do you practice tough love, or do you nurture?

Anxiety in babies and children can range from mild, where a baby/child will express displeasure at a certain situation that they do not like, to severe where the baby/child will completely avoid the disliked situation from occurring. That may be refusal to get out of bed on the particular day, feign a sickness, crying and screaming or acting out in another direction to avoid the impending situation (i.e. fighting with a sibling to get into enough trouble to distract you from what it was that had to take place).

Mild or severe, anxiety needs to be addressed, regardless of the age. But the method of address varies depending on the developmental age of the person.

Following are just a few methods that are easy to implement, that will mean the world to your baby/child. They are aimed at babies and young children, because as a parent you (and I) can feel quite overwhelmed about which direction to take.

Teach them about the wonders of JOY.
To be joyful is to know, feel and give pleasure. Make sure your baby/child can see what JOY means to you and they will learn that JOY is a good thing, a thing to be treasured, a thing to attain from a trusted and loved giver. Babies and children have an innate ability to seek JOY and use it as an experience to be treasured.

Teach them about the power of TOUCH.
Love can be absorbed through the skin, this you can be sure of. A loving cuddle can reassure and help ease the tension of uneasy feelings. At the end of a long day, forget the baby bath! Enjoy the skin to skin contact with your little one in the shower. It will relax both of you as you wind down and prepare for sleep.

Play a game of STARE.
How much can you feel about a person and their mood by just looking into, even studying, their eyes? A baby will do this from about 6 weeks of age. They will look to you to know how to feel. They will feel your happiness by just looking into your eyes. They will be comforted by your gaze. They will feel a wonderful sense of attachment to you just by this one interaction.

LOOK for what they need.
Babies and young children are not very good at hiding their needs. They can not afford to be as their body language is, primarily, the only way they can communicate until speech is developed. Are they standing in front of you? Are they standing behind? Are they holding your hand looking into your eyes for direction? Are they happy to explore? Give some time to consciously think about these actions and put yourself in their shoes. Analise your own responses in social situation, and learn what they mean and acknowledge what you need. It will make you a better respondent to the body language that we all display.

INDULGE your baby/child's demands
You can respond to your baby/child's demands as much as you like. Make them feel that they are listened to and what they need is important. Be comforted in knowing that your responses are teaching them that you care, you will listen and you will be there in times of need. Just remember, a person will only become 'spoilt' if they are not taught about respect and gratitude.

SUPPORT your baby/child's feelings.
When you are needed, make sure you can be there. Alternatively if you can not, make sure that someone trusted is available to validate your loved ones needs. It will give you a better understanding of how to see situations coming and formulate tools to deal with them. In some cases it is a matter of 'trial and error'. Your response may not work this time, so learn and do something different next time. When you stumble across a positive outcome, stick to it like glue. Little ones thrive on consistency, being able to feel what a positive outcome is, and predict (from your routine) how you should respond.

SHARE you feelings.
Teach your baby/child that feelings are a part of being alive and living. Make sure that they know feeling sad or mad are not wrong, but show them ways to cope with their feelings in positive ways. By all means cry, laugh, growl, yell, be silent, dance, sing, argue, but follow it up with a demonstrated lesson of acceptance and problem solving.

NOT perfect, please.
Trying to be perfect will exhaust you. It will not give you any room to improve. Make sure that you and your baby/child know that most of the time near enough is good enough. What you miss today, you can make up for tomorrow. Do not torture yourself over the uncontrollable, do not let what happened yesterday affect what you do today, or how you feel about tomorrow. Live for now, it is much more fun that way.

Be to them what you would want a parent to be.
Learn from what you liked or did not like as you were nurtured as a baby/child. Know that what is important to you is also important to your child.

Oh and one final point. It is NEVER too late to make a change. After all humans are evolving every day!