4 year old boy developing seperation anxiety from a parent

[clairdiluca]

My son has been having extreme seperation anxiety from my husband (his father) for the past 2 months now especially in the morning, when my husband leaves for work in the morning at 6:30 am my son hears him leaving gets up and runs to the window in his room which overlooks the driveway, sees him leaving and then has an extreme meltdown, starts crying and screaming so badly he hyperventilates and I can't seem to calm him down.
This behaviour started after my husband was on a buisness trip for 1 week and my son was fine while he was away, didn't get upset or ask where he was, but since then he is constantly worried he is leaving. When it's time for bed at night he starts getting extremely upset and asks his dad " your not going to work tomorrow right?"
I'm not too sure how to handle this situation any longer because it sets his day off badly and then often acts out at school (he's in junior kindergarten) especially on the days when it is really bad.

any suggestions would be very helpful.

thanks

clair

[allmymarbles]

Smashing idea!

[jdtm]

Could your husband give some special "thing" of his to your son to keep safe until he returns home from work?  Doesn't matter what it is - Daddy will be back to retrieve this "thing" and your son's job would be to safeguard it.  This "thing" should remind your son that his Daddy needs to and will come home to retrieve this "thing".  Obviously, trying to reason about job responsibilities is not working so I would tend to get away from the "explaining" and "talking".  Direct all comments about Daddy's return to the importance of this "thing".  This might work - then again ....

[clairdiluca]

he has always been reassuring to him and we have tried to explain to him that daddy needs to go to work so he can buy him things and pay for our house, but he doesn't want to hear any of it. we also tried to explain that while he is at school, daddy is at work and when he omes home, daddy will be home shortly after, still doesn't help

[AnnieBrooke]

How is your husband responding to the boy?  Is he doing anything differently to try to reassure him?