Son Express Anxiety for His Dad Away for Business

He's at an age where children can experience separation anxiety. Since he's apparently a pretty sensitive, attentive, and imaginative boy, your arguments may conceivably work into his complex feelings, perhaps as a subliminal worry about losing one of you.

I have several ideas that may help your son. First, don't deny his worry – empathize with it. Then he'll be able to process it and consider more positive possibilities. Start with "Oh, sweetie, you're worried about your daddy, aren't you? You are afraid something bad will happen to him while he's gone, right? Yes, that's hard. We all have worries like that sometimes. Is there any thing else you want to say about it?" Listen and affirm his statements without exaggerating it if he says any more.

Share with him that you miss daddy, too. And you're looking forward to his return. Show him a calendar, and mark the day his daddy will be coming home. Help him count off days.

He might also like seeing a map so he knows where his daddy is physically right now.

Hearing his dad's voice on the phone might help (it can possibly cause even more longing, though). If it seems reassuring, try to arrange opportunities. Your husband could even leave a recorded message about looking forward to getting home to his family again, and you could play the message occasionally.

Plan a welcome home party for daddy with your son's help. Give him something positive to do about the absence.

Make up a song about your son traveling and then coming home again. Make it silly. When he's good and involved, include verses about you traveling and returning, and his little brother, and any pets you might have, and finally his daddy. This may give him a sense of normalcy about travel for everybody, including his dad.

If he expresses ongoing worry about something more specific, such as cars having accidents, agree that sometimes cars do have accidents, and that's why people learn to use them carefully. Because people learn the rules for driving, they usually don't have accidents.

I'd also pay attention to whether either you or your husband tend to back-seat drive, express anxiety about the other's driving, or yell about driving mistakes. Or whether he plays crashing games or sees videos/TV with car crashes. All of these could have given your son a sense of heightened risk regarding cars.

Hi I.-

I've worked with toddlers for many years, and they do worry a lot about family and highly dislike any change.

What I think happened, your son probably saw a TV show where Mom/Dad were in an accident where Mom came home & Dad had to stay in the hospital or something similar. He probably associates that with what recently happened with you.

If you have a computer and your husband has one while traveling, I'd suggest you try using Skype for your son to talk to your husband and see him. I use Skype for some of my parent coaching sessions, and it's GREAT!

When I was a Nanny and the Dad would travel , I has a map of the US on the wall with a picture of Dad pinned to city he was in. If grandparents or aunts/uncles were in other states, we'd put their pictures there too.

Remember, toddlers are visual, so SEEING Dad will help him more then talking to your son about him.

Good luck.

R. Magby

I travel a lot for work and love to talk to my kids on the phone- although sometimes it is just me and them crying because we miss each other so much. Hopefully your husband can find time to talk with them- although it can be tough across time zones, work time/nap time/bed time- meals out. We do skype with our relatives across the country and they love it! I do not skype while on business travel though.

As a military spouse I've had to deal with this more often than not. This last deployment my husband really traumatized our poor daughter by dropping her off at daycare while she was still asleep and I was still working, so she didn't have any sort of closure about him leaving, she woke up and he was gone. A lot of mom's have interesting ways of dealing with these long absences. Some will take a pillow and a t shirt and have Dad sleep on the pillow wearing the t shirt then, when Dad leaves put the t shirt on the pillow and let them go to bed with it. Others with screen print a picture of Dad onto fabric and make a sort of doll for their child. I suggest that if you have any military friends find out what they do while their spouse is deployed, because they're having to deal with it for six months or more and phone calls and skype are not necessarily available.

Hi I.,

My husband travels a lot for his job. he has been out for the last 3 weeks and will be back only on July 5th.
My son sees him everyday, sometimes twice a day, on Skype video-conferencing.
I strongly recommend that you would this kind of tool, so your son can see your husband is OK. If it's not possible, a phone call from your husband may help?

good luck!

let him talk to daddy on the phone. that should calm his nerves. let daddy reassure him he will be home and he hasn't had a car accident.