What is separation anxiety disorder?
Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is defined as excessive worry and fear about being apart from family members or individuals to whom a child is most attached. Children with separation anxiety disorder fear being lost from their family or fear something bad happening to a family member if they separated from them. Symptoms of anxiety or fear about being separated from family members must last for a period of at least four weeks to be considered SAD. It is different than stranger anxiety, which is normal and usually experienced by children between seven and 11 months of age. Symptoms of SAD are more severe than the normal separation anxiety that nearly every child experiences to some degree between the ages of 18 months and three years of age.
