tantrums – Nannyjob blog

Understanding and Managing Separation Anxiety in Children

Separation anxiety is a common and natural phase in a child’s development. It typically occurs when children become fearful or anxious when separated from their primary caregivers. While it’s most prevalent in infants and toddlers, older children can also experience separation anxiety. This blog post will explore the causes, symptoms, and strategies to manage separation anxiety, offering support to parents, nannies, and childcarers.

Introduction

Understanding Separation Anxiety

Separation anxiety often begins around six months of age and can continue through preschool years. It’s a normal developmental stage, reflecting a child’s growing awareness of the world and their attachment to their caregivers. However, in some cases, it can be more intense and persistent, requiring additional attention and care.

Common Symptoms of Separation Anxiety

Excessive clinginess
Crying or tantrums when a caregiver leaves
Fear of being alone
Nightmares or trouble sleeping
Physical complaints such as stomachaches or headaches

Causes of Separation Anxiety

Several factors can contribute to separation anxiety, including:

Developmental stages: As children grow, their understanding of separation and permanence evolves.
Changes in routine: New environments, changes in caregivers, or family stress can trigger anxiety.
Temperament: Some children are naturally more anxious and may be more prone to separation anxiety.

Strategies to Manage Separation Anxiety

Establish a Routine: Predictable routines help children feel secure. Try to stick to regular schedules for meals, naps, and bedtime.
Practice Short Separations: Gradually increase the time you spend away from your child. Start with short separations and slowly extend them as your child becomes more comfortable.
Create a Goodbye Ritual: Develop a consistent and quick goodbye ritual to reassure your child. Avoid lingering, as this can increase anxiety.
Stay Calm and Positive: Children often mirror their caregivers’ emotions. Staying calm and positive can help reduce your child’s anxiety.
Provide Comfort Objects: Allow your child to have a comfort object, like a favorite toy or blanket, when you’re apart.
Encourage Independence: Foster your child’s independence by allowing them to engage in activities without your constant presence.
Communicate: Talk to your child about their feelings and reassure them that it’s okay to feel anxious.

When to Seek Professional Help

If your child’s separation anxiety is severe, persistent, or interfering with daily activities, consider seeking advice from a pediatrician or child psychologist. Professional guidance can help address underlying issues and develop effective coping strategies.

Conclusion

Separation anxiety is a challenging but normal part of childhood development. With patience, understanding, and consistent strategies, parents, nannies, and childcarers can help children navigate this phase and build a sense of security and confidence.

Talking tantrums

Parents and childcarers – nannies, childminders, aupairs or nursery staff – are almost all familiar with the tantrums, but there can be differences of opinion on how to deal with them.

As a childcarer it’s difficult to bring up a sensitive subject. Tantrums are an entirely normal phase of development, coming from a child’s desire to show their independence and assert themselves or an inability to communicate, and intellectually parents know that but no-one likes to hear that their child has been ‘misbehaving’.

Parents may not share details of the behaviours with childcarers, perhaps feeling that it’s a reflection on their parenting skills, or perceived lack thereof. Children do often save their worst behaviour for their parents but it is not a sign of weakness to make others aware of facts.

It’s important that neither party shies away from discussing the issue. The best way to deal with tantrums is a consistent approach from everyone involved. That way a child quickly learns what the limits are and that having a paddy isn’t an effective way of getting what they want. Communicating also allows parents and childcarers to share tips and tricks. Parents may know what frustrates their child and be adept at handling it so sharing that information with their child’s carer is vital to help prevent tantrums. Childcarers may be able to offer strategies that have worked with other children or reassure parents that their child is indeed learning to deal with frustration and that the tantrums will soon decrease.

Toddlers especially need to make sense of the world. It’s reassuring for them to have a set of consistent rules and boundaries, consistent positive attention for good behaviour and a consistent response to a tantrum. It’s especially important that everyone is on the same page when it comes to safety. Communicating about expectations and accommodating each other’s practices where possible makes the transition as easy as possible for children and avoids unnecessary tantrums.

Children also need autonomy. Some adults are inclined to say ‘no’ to anything out of the ordinary, even when it’s perfectly possible to accommodate a request, and others will bend over backwards to comply. Obviously in group childcare settings it’s more difficult to deal with individual whims, and it doesn’t do any good to spoil children by giving in to them all the time, but by working together parents and carers can agree what will or won’t be accommodated.

Finally, while it’s important to communicate between adults it’s also important not to let what happens when you aren’t there affect your relationship with a child. Sharing information should help you understand and deal with tantrums, but it needs to be done sensitively and with respect.

3 ways to better manage behaviour

Observe

Obviously we’re always watching children but simply watching is very different to keenly observing with an objective in mind. If you’re notice a pattern of negative behaviour make a special effort to observe and find the triggers. Sometimes the incidents seem random but there may be a bigger pattern behind it – common causes are unexpected tiredness, over-stimulation, teeth coming through. Sometimes it’s linked to something that we’re doing, albeit unintentionally. A child who doesn’t know what is expected of them will lash out when confused. This is particularly noticeable when children are growing in independence and learning new skills, but at the same time the mistakes they make are behaviours we don’t want to encourage. It’s difficult to learn to drink from an open cup without spilling once or twice.

Continue reading “3 ways to better manage behaviour”

The wheels on the car go round and round

freeimage-6735132(1) — © Teo73 | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

It’s a rare child who never has to go in the car, and an even rarer one who never fights going into the carseat or gets bored after 5 minutes making a journey less than pleasant for everyone involved. Today we’re going to look at some ideas which will hopefully make your life easier.

Earlier this year we came across a nifty little product on Twitter, called My Car Step, which attaches safely to the car seat. Invented by a mum fed up of battling her daughter, this award winning product allows children to climb into the carseat by themselves instead of being lifted, or manhandled, in. As we said in our post on tantrums, allowing children independence can defuse situations and, as a bonus this will save your back some strain, because you no longer need to perform contorted lifting manoeuvres. For nannies or childminders, who can lift multiple children into carseats on a daily basis for twenty years or more, good lifting technique and minimising strain is invaluable.

Once your little cherubs are safely attached it’s worth making the environment as comfortable as possible. Sunshades will reduce glare and making sure that the children are wearing the name number of layers as you will allow you to control the car’s temperature appropriately. Take their personal preferences into account regarding recline where possible – better that a child is happy but falls asleep upright than is reclined from the start and protests all the way. On long journeys you can stop briefly to adjust the recline to ensure they remain comfortable. Before setting off check that they have any toys within easy reach, and if necessary a drink of some kind.

Music can make journeys a lot more bearable for children, as singing along to their favourite nursery rhymes with sound effects and actions will keep them occupied. If it gets unbearable for you make a compilation of songs you all enjoy and listen to that instead. While you may appreciate the radio, young children may be bored by adverts and some songs won’t be age appropriate.

One perennial favourite is I-spy, a game with endless possibilities and several variations. Under-2s will join in looking for objects if you say ‘I spy with my little eye a bus/tractor/cow’. Preschoolers are able to identify objects associated with colours ‘I spy something red/green/yellow’ and once children are confidently recognising phonics or letters your can play the classic version.

Older children who don’t get car sick can play a version of I-spy bingo. Create some cars with pictures of different objects such as a bus, a set of traffic lights, a bicycle or a letterbox, and include some less common ones. When children see the object they can mark it on their card. The idea is to get a row, or if your feeling really adventurous, a full house. This also improves memory and recall as they will need to be able to tell you when and where they saw the objects.

Children who can recognise letters can help you make up funny sentences from the letters on car number plates. Y491 AMS makes You Are My Squishy or You Ate Many Satsumas. K920 LSC can become Katie Likes Scented Candles or Kicking Leaves Someone Crying.

Even young children can get involved in making up stories about other people on the road. This enhances social and emotional development, introduces children to situational humour, and exercises their imagination. This is especially good if you’re stuck in traffic and can see pedestrians walking by. You can pick someone who is walking by and ask the children where they think the person is going. Are they in a hurry? Why might that be?

Check our our ‘Travel with children‘ board on Pinterest for more ideas.

Finally, even if the traffic is frustrating, you’re late and it’s raining outside, keep your cool. Children will easily pick up on tension and frustration, and if you’re constantly enraged when on the road they’ll begin to associate going in the car with negative emotions. Ideally journeys should be fun and education, but most of all, happy!

We hope you find some of this helpful. What’s your fail safe technique for car journeys?