separation anxiety

You get the children all cleaned up and yourself ready by 9:30 AM on Sunday morning and head to Sunday School and church. The older children run to their classes with enthusiasm, but when you approach the nursery, there is a toddler clinging to your leg with fierce resistance to enter the place. It is one of the most frustrating things to deal with regarding your toddler. Wish that I had some help with it, but the best advice is to give it some time. Go to the nursery with them, plan to do that. Perhaps you can begin to leave them for very short time periods, starting with a couple of minutes and gradually increasing it so that theoretically, they will learn that you in deed will return. I remember once when I was lost from my mother at Penny's when I was about 7. I remember a sales lady telling me to stand by the front door, there was a belt rack next to me, and that my mother would find me. I really thought that she might not look for me and that I would never see her again.....and I was seven. So, give your toddler some time to grow up. It will naturally get better and I am not sure that it is worth the struggle for both of you to fight it. At least that is my perspective at this time in my life. This post is prompted by a toddler in our church nursery where I hang out quite often, who so resisted for a long time staying in the nursery without a family member. Today he was playing happily and had been on Sundays for the past few weeks. It will happen.