Stranger Anxiety: When Children Face Strangers
This article by Dr. Ronnie Solan explores how and why children develop stranger anxiety — a normal and healthy part of early emotional development. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory and her concept of the emotional immune system (healthy narcissism), Dr. Solan explains how the infant's innate need to protect the familiar self triggers alertness and anxiety when faced with unfamiliar people.
The article discusses:
- Why stranger anxiety is a healthy developmental milestone, not a problem to be "fixed"
- How infants distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar faces from the earliest weeks of life
- The role of healthy narcissism as an emotional immune system in protecting the child's sense of self
- How parents can sensitively support their child through encounters with strangers
- When stranger anxiety becomes excessive and what parents can do