My 2.5 year old son has always been somewhat shy, but just stands behind me until he is comfortable, but then is his fine happy self. All of a sudden this week he has been having panic attacks it seems if he thinks a stranger (usually men) are coming close. He then begins to scream, cry and begs to have "Daddy hold him".
Nothing happened to set this fear, my husband and I are always with him. It started when we went out to eat early this week, he went crazy when we walked in the restaurant, so we went home.
The next day I went to get gas and he again, started crying and screaming for "Daddy to hold him" when the gas attendant came to the car. Then tonight we ordered food to be delivered and he did the same thing when I answered the door.
He is very attached to his father (he works from home) so he sees him all the time...
But my question is Is this something serious I should worry about? Or is this typical behavior for a 2 year old? Not sure if I should bring him to a doctor/therapist.
Thank you! Any input would be appreciated.
Seems like someone scared him. Maybe not intentionally but in his eyes.
At 2 1/2 it is hard to get any information from him. If you know you are
going somewhere, like gas station, where a male will be, try to tell him and
reassure him that he is safe with you and there is nothing to worry about.
Little ones go thru these phases. You never know how long they will last.
Hopefully this will short lived. Good luck.
when my son was a little under 2 he went through a weird phobia phase. he got hysterical at the sight of mud puddles, and couldn't stand for his hands to be dirty. we couldn't for the life of us figure out what brought it on.
i doubt he needs therapy. it's probably just a phase. don't over-react to it and feed into it. just stay calm and soothing, not making a fuss. dimes to doughnuts he'll grow out of it soon.
khairete
S.
Thanks for your posting. My daughter will be 3 in a few days and we are struggling with the same problem. She won't let anyone strange get close to her, or touch her, forget it! She didn't even want to go see uncle Peter (her godfather) the other day. I had to force her up the stairs to his house and then she'd keep saying "he won't look at me" and then she'd look at him to see what he's doing and turn her head away. She's now doing the same thing to her godmother (who lives in the house next to ours). Two days ago, she brought some books for my girl and my daughter just freaked, started running around the driveway calling "Papa, papa, I want my Papa." She then ran to my husband. I felt almost embarrassed and the godmother was totally shocked. The problem we have is that I'm due to have a baby any day and we have noone to leave her with except her godmother, so this will be interesting. Anyway, as others have said here, I hope it's just a phase, so don't worry. Try to support your son and be patient. And I will try to do the same with my girl...:o)
Best of luck. I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only one with this issue because I was starting to wonder whether I should take her for an evaluation.
It's probably a phase. Mine had this phase where every Marine on base was daddy. Hubby was deployed so any time we saw one in cammies she called him Daaaaaa, and she was not quiet about it.
Let him knoiw quietly but firmly that the screeching is not OK. Tell him when he gets quiet, We do not scream.
Do not give an over abundance of attention to the screeching. Find a scream chair and when he starts that's where he goes.
I would say Uh Oh Tantrum, we go to the tantrum room. I used a sing songy voice la dee da
This was the living room with carpet. Then I would pick her up and pplace her in the living room. One day she started her tantrum, stopped, picked herself up and went into the living room then continued her fit. It was the funniest thing I ever saw.
No, no therapist. Honestly I would prefer to have this behavior to have to bring back to normal than my son, who has never met a stranger since 2 years old! Just calmly tell him he is perfectly safe with Daddy, but he is right to not want to talk to people he doesn't know. Tell him he doesn't have to talk to anyone he doesn't know, and reiterate that to strangers that try to talk to him. He will probably be more comfortable and react more appropriately knowing you're on his side and will stand up for what he is comfortable with. Strangers will also react more respectfully if you tell them "We have been teaching him not to talk to adults he doesn't know" vs. "Oh, he is very shy." For some stupid reason, every stranger on earth thinks they can bring a kid out of their shell, and I only makes it worse.
I don't think this requires a therapist. If he still does it at 5 years old, I'd be concerned. Toddlers may have stranger anxiety and quite honestly, that is NOT a bad thing! I wouldn't be upset by it at this stage. I'd be happier for my young child to be upset by strangers than overly friendly to them. Being friendly to strangers is not a good thing!
PS sorry to be critical, quote marks only go around what the person is actually saying, what comes out of their mouth. You don't need them when you are saying that your child wants daddy to hold him. They would go around your son saying, "Daddy hold me."
.
