Calm separation anxiety with sophrology
Moms recently shared with us their questions about their children’s separation anxiety. Sophrologist Catherine Aliotta was kind enough to lend herself to a question-and-answer game to help them support their little ones through sophrology.
I thought about sophrology to help my 4 and a half year old son manage his separation anxiety but I don’t know from what age I can start this type of session. Do you advise me to consult a child psychiatrist in parallel? Nadège, 36 years old
Catherine Aliotta: The practice of sophrology can start very early provided that the child is able to reproduce what is shown to him. Before this age, it is rather the parents who perform the exercises to manage the stress and fatigue generated by these crises of tears.
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The fact that parents are more relaxed at home, however, has a very positive impact on the child. He feels less tension than his crying can create on his father or mother, which helps him calm down more easily.
Sophrology is entirely compatible with other types of therapeutic support. It may also be particularly recommended to call a child psychiatrist to make a “diagnosis” and then have recourse to sophrology sessions to defuse the situation.
Since entering kindergarten this year, my daughter begins to cry almost every morning when she is dropped off at school. How could sophrology help us? Elodie, 27
C.A.: Even if it tends to worry parents, separation anxiety is normal in children. It allows him to gradually realize that he is an individual in his own right. But the way in which this distinction takes place can be experienced brutally by the child.
In this case, the practice of sophrology could very well take place before going to school. 10 min may be enough to do some exercises. Children love to share a special moment with one of the parents. Here, we can focus the exercises on reassurance, with the eyes closed, the child can in turn feel his parent’s stomach swell under his hands during abdominal breathing, then his own. This exercise makes it possible, casually and reassuringly, to make the transition from merger to individualization.
Then, we can end this short session by leading the child to imagine his ideal day, to gradually reduce the apprehension. The blanket can also be part of history as a true adventure companion.
Since the separation anxiety that appeared at the age of 9 months with my son, it is his dad who takes care of bedtime because when it is me, it turns into drama. For me, it is very difficult to hear her cry without being able to intervene, can sophrology help me to calm this daily anxiety? Fanny, 34
C.A.: So this time, we no longer speak of separation anxiety in children but of its impact on the parent. It is true that for the mom, this situation, however transitory, is difficult to live, because she can have the feeling of not being able to meet the emotional needs of her child.
What might be interesting here is to try to fight the guilt. But before that, you have to be able to build your “resources”, that is to say moments of exclusivity spent with your child. The idea is to manage to reassure oneself by realizing the time that one has been able to devote to his little one, during the day, the week. These moments do not have to be very long but lived while being fully present.
If the child then starts to cry at bedtime and the anxiety appears, then it will be easier to perform a sophrology exercise. It will be a question of going back to this past moment, as if to say to oneself “I know that I have devoted quality time to my child, I let the guilt fly away”.
The sophrologist Catherine Aliotta regularly intervenes in chronicles devoted to children. She is also the author of Practical manual Sophrology and childhood, published by InterEditions.
On the same subject :
Sophrology to overcome childhood anxiety – Maison de Maternelles