One of my almost 5 yo dds has in the last month had a huge surge of separation anxiety to the point where it's making routine things unapproachable for her -- a dance class and swimming lessons that she's happily participated in for the last year are now causing her to fall apart and she doesn't want to leave my side -- even though I'm sitting and observing the classes 15 feet away -- saying that she is nervous and the class is too hard. Though also insisting that she really wants to go to the class. She and her twin were both in preschool 3 days/wk last year and she was the one who marched off happily every day with barely a wave good-bye. She has also always been seemingly very self-assured whereas her sister went through a tough stage at 3.5-somewhat past 4 where she was clingy easily frustrated. She was more self-conscious than I think is typical for her age and had high expectations of herself as she tried to match the world around her but but was held back by her age-appropriate physical and emotional abilitites. So now I'm attributing the currently anxious girl's anxiety to what may be a newly awakening self-consciousness that is making her uncomfortable and more clingy as she realizes more and more that she is fitting into a world that isn't only her. She always has lived so much in her head (where sis has always been more reality based) and, for instance, in dance class would be happily flitting about doing something that only barely resembled what the teacher and for the most part the rest of the class were doing and it was just pure fun. Now she seems a little more hesitant and I think is noticing (though not at a verbalizable level) that she's supposed to be doing things a certain way and she doesn't get it. So, based on her sister's breaking though it, I'm assuming that it will pass once she gets used to her new world view, but it's not fun for her in the meantime. And I'm also a little sad about it.
Subbing to read because of a similar situation
