What Is Stranger Anxiety and Why Does It Happen?

Helping your child with stranger anxiety is very important, almost as important as working hard to adequately develop your child’s eyesight, giving it your all to incorporate safe toys into your baby’s everyday life, and having your munchkin involved in as much social play as possible. How else will your child think to his or herself “I can’t wait for a summer camp near me in La Jolla in 2019 wooo!”.

As funny as we’ve made it sound with this last introspective baby-talk, stranger anxiety is a serious matter best resolved as early as possible, and, in order to begin to tackle this problem, you first have to know what it is.

Why do babies cry around strangers?

Babies cry, just a fact of life. They cry at night, they cry during the day, as it is their only way of signaling their parents that something may be wrong, or that they are hungry, thirsty, or that they just need attention.

But that’s crying in normal circumstances. When babies cry around people who are strangers to them, it’s not the same as babies crying when they need their diaper changed. To parents, it comes off as an alarm, triggering their protective instinct. But, most of the time, it has nothing to do with unfamiliar people themselves, but with other things. Let’s see why your baby cries.

1. Stranger anxiety - This is usually the primary and only reasons your baby cries when a stranger is near or when an unknown person tries to hold him or her. It basically means that your baby is old enough to differentiate you from strangers, and able to express dissatisfaction and anxiety when strangers come too near.

2. Personality - Also, it can be just the personality of your baby. There are babies who are easy-going, and babies who are more discerning of whom they want near them. It’s not always stranger anxiety.

3. Intuition - The rarest, but also the most interesting reason for your baby crying around strangers is that they your baby is going to be more anxious if you’re expressing worry and anxiety about how your baby is going to react to a stranger. It seems that the parents’ emotions are not as hidden as we thought.

At what age do babies recognize strangers?

When your munchkin is with you, the parents, the charming personality oozes from every smile, every giggle, every grab and every wave. However, when you take your child outside to meet some friends, yout baby changes completely, he or she becomes clingy and anxious around every other person. You start fearing that something may be wrong.

Don’t be afraid though, as it is all too normal at a certain stage of your baby’s development. Around the seventh month, your baby may become overly sensitive to the presence of unfamiliar people in his or her immediate surroundings. This is the stage when your child actually starts differentiating mum and dad from other people, people who are not there every day and whom your kid perceives as strangers.

However, as we’ve already said, but would like to emphasize again, this is a normal developmental stage. It will pass soon enough, but don’t be afraid if it persists either. Stranger anxiety will stop in the period of 18 months of age to two years. You’re only in trouble if stranger anxiety persists until the time for one of the San Diego Unified School District schools. We’re just joking, it won’t persist nearly as long.

What is stranger anxiety and when does it develop?

Allow us to get all science for a second here. Stranger anxiety is a form of distress that occurs when your child is being exposed to strangers. It is a normal part of the developmental sequence, and a vast majority of children experience it. Stranger fear, which is another term for stranger anxiety, can even surface when a person a child trusts is around. The peak of stranger anxiety is during the period of six to twelve months, and it can go on until the age of two.

That’s pretty much all you need to know about stranger anxiety, with the emphasis on it being normal. Plenty of parents stress about their child’s stress, but they really shouldn’t. It’s all perfectly fine, but if you really want to help your child’s anxiety, the best way to do so is for your child to participate in activities together with other children of the same age. Social play is a great way of eliminating stranger anxiety as quickly as possible.

“How can I help my child with stranger anxiety?”

There are many methods of helping your child with stranger anxiety, but the best one is allowing your child to socialize with children of the same age in a fun, loving, and safe environment. Perhaps your child is too young for you to wonder about the best summer camps for children in 2019, but it’s never too early for engaging baby and toddler activities at My Gym La Jolla.