Fear of loss in children

Introduction

Fear of loss is a phenomenon that everyone has experienced at different intensities. They can refer to many different things, such as animals, objects or the job. For children as well as adults, however, the most common target of a fear of loss is the family.

A certain fear of loss with regard to the family is present in all children, but this fear can be significantly increased by traumatic experiences for the child. Such events include a divorce of the parents, the loss of a close family member or massive neglect of the child. The resulting symptoms can be very multifaceted.

Most often, the main symptoms are fear of being alone when going to bed and darkness, but also long-lasting crying when one parent is only away for a few minutes. If such excessive fears of children are not taken seriously enough and something is not done about it, fears of loss in childhood can also affect behavior later in life. These include, for example, the difficulty of allowing closeness or entering into closer personal relationships.

Causes

The underlying cause for children’s exaggerated fear of loss is usually traumatic events they have gone through during their development. Such events, such as the loss of a sibling or a parent, cause children to cling all the more to their caregivers in order to “not also” lose them. Other causes, however, can also be parental separation, and the loss of a caregiver often associated with this, or significant neglect by one or both parents.

However, exactly the opposite, a too strong attachment to a caregiver, usually the mother, can also be the trigger for strong fear of loss. All of these causes can prevent children from building up trust in their parents during their development, as they are unable to trust that their parents will always come back after they have been away for a short time. As a result, children may perceive a separation, even a short-term one, as a loss, which can then express itself as a permanent fear. You can find more information on this topic at Attachment disorders in children.