My ten year old son has uncontrollable fear/anxiety about being in a room alone.

[Teresa]

My son has always been terribly afraid to be in a room alone, but this was something that I thought he would outgrow.  When he was almost eight, upon numerous lies to me, I demanded "go to your room!" (which he, at that time, shared with his sister).  He stood in his doorway and screamed like he was being tortured.  I realized that I hadn't really thought about this punishment, I was upset with him and knew that I needed to count to 10 (or 100) and was only rational enough at the time to know that I would need to calm down before dealing with him, thus I sent him to his room.  I took him to a child psychologist for three visits, at which time he said he "sees spirits", but I was dissappointed when I was told to buy him a Superman pajama set, and other ideas that sounded so ridiculous.  The one idea that I thought was great was allowing him to sleep with a flashlight.  I decided to enroll him in karate, and thought this would make him more secure.  Within the last two years I have moved from the two bedroom apartment and into a house, which he seemed to adjust to having his own room.  Maybe I made a mistake, but to encourage him to stay in his own room, I have allowed him to fall asleep watching TV (cartoon network), in the hopes that it would provide him with a little light in the room, as well as movement and sound to cover any possible noises or shadows from trees blowing from the outside.  Finally, this summer he seemed to have come out of his shell, he no longer would bang on his teenage sisters door to make her wake up, because he's an early riser and was scared to go to the kitchen for breakfast by himself.  Nor was he afraid to hang out in the living room while she was asleep, or go out to the extra refrigerator in the garage where we keep cold drinks.  Unfortunately, within the last three weeks he has resumed this behavior, but to a worse degree and become very clingy.  His sister has moved in with her father in order to go to a small town school, and he seemed to adjust fine to this change.  Now he will not shut his bedroom door or the bathroom door all the way when he is in these rooms.  In the mornings, I have had to start waking him up after I shower and dry my hair, so that I can stand in the hall bathroom and put on my makeup and do my hair, while he sits at the table and eats breakfast, gets dressed, etc.  If I walk out of the bathroom and into my room (just for a few seconds), he immediately runs from the table to his room or sits on the couch and covers his face with a pillow.  If his stepdad and I go in the garage, he follows us; if we walk outside, he follows us; he is simply glued to us.  Because of problems with school work, I have removed his TV from his room, and have begun reading him stories to help him get to sleep, but I absolutely have to turn his radio on softly, so that there is noise in the room.  On the weekends when my daughter comes to visit, I allow him to stay up late with her, and she told me the other day that he had watched a scary movie one weekend called "Fear" (about a haunted prison).  The psychologist told me that usually a fear like this is inherited, and I was a kid who had such fears, but not to this extreme (primarily because I had to face my fears or my siblings would have taunted me to death if they'd have known).  I cannot watch scary movies and will not, nor do I allow my son to watch them, because of how scared he is.  I have tried to talk to him to ease his fears, encourage him to say his bedtime prayers and to face his fears, to realize there are noises in the house that are generated from the ice-maker, air conditioner, cat, etc., but nothing seems to help.  The other night he refused to shut the shower door and water got all over my floor, I kept going into the bathroom and shutting it, and he would immediately open it.  He will be 11 years old in two months, and I'm beginning to think he will not outgrow this.  At this point, I am looking for any ideas of how I can help him, or steps that I should take to get him through this, and if this is abnormal behavior.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Dear Teresa,

The behaviors you describe are not normal for a ten-year-old. It sounds like your son displays a baseline of Separation Anxiety Disorder, which is heightened/exacerbated when he witnesses particularly scary things, like the movie you mentioned. Even without the movie, though, he still displays fears.

While you didn't have a successful experience wuth the psychologist, such consultation is the right thing to do. Ask around, see if you can rceieve some suggestions about a therapist. Some of the interventions you've attempted have been worthwhile, but they are clearly not sufficient to relax your son. Don't give up on professional help - your son really does need it.