Spend as much time as you can relaxing with her. If possible, co-sleep. Whites forget that children need their parents and banish them far away for hours at a time from birth. It’s cruel and leads to a lot of mental issues.

I have a 12yo with anxiety secondary to ASD though he was actually diagnosed with anxiety years before his ASD diagnosis. Kindergarten was a really, really horrible experience for my DS and caused lasting damage. If I could change anything we did as parents it would be to completely redo how we approached school. I'm not sure anything would have made it rainbows and unicorns, but having a diagnosis going into K would maybe have started us off on a better foot by helping the school create a more predictable and supportive environment for him. As it was, they blamed a lot of his anxiety behavior on "bad behavior", which he quickly absorbed as his being a bad boy and things went downhill from there.

I always recommend "What to do when you worry too much" -- https://www.amazon.com/What-When-Worry-Much-What/dp/1591473144 -- for parents of kids with anxiety. 3.5yo is a little young to read the book with, but you can get it now and familiarize yourself with the ideas and language of helping her deal with anxiety. Like a PP said, you don't want to focus on the anxiety too much by comforting her out of it whenever she's anxious, but instead give her tools to deal with it. And 3.5yo is not too young to start with that.

Anonymous wrote:Validate, validate, validate. I wish I’d learned it sooner. Don’t try to talk your child out of her worries or jump in too quickly to fix things. Listen, affirm that her feelings are real, help her learn what to do when she is fearful If you or your spouse have anxiety, work on your own issues so you can be a non-anxious presence.

This and talk to a parenting therapist who has training in play therapy and focuses on parental connections.

We started a lot of roleplaying around 4ish. How to talk to new people, how to ask other kids to play, etc. It worked pretty well. When he was 6, we saw a CBT therapist who helped him learn to focus on breath, calming physical reactions to stress & anxiety, etc., because he tended to panic and get super, super flustered. It was a wonderful experience. He's 9 now and we still revisit what he learned in CBT as needed, because it was so great for him.

I am the PP above and just remembered something. As my DD got older I would ask her what helps her feel better if she is scared. For the bugs she has asked to wear long pants/long sleeves (I make sure they are super thin) outside when playing. I'm sure lots of others wonder why she is dressed for "winter" at the playground, but hey it works for her.

OP, my DD (who is now 5) also displayed a lot of the characteristics you described at that age. It would be hard to do now, but we enrolled her in 45 min classes where my DH or I could be nearby through a window (drop off library program, Little Gym, exc.). This helped her to separate from us gradually as I also did not enroll her in preschool at 3 for similar concerns as you. When she started at 4, she did great separating from us.

I also agree with other posters that it can be hard to tell if it is personality or a medical condition at such a young age. It will showcase itself over the next few years. For now you know best on how to manage/phrase situations to help her. For my DD she needs me to not ever act scared in a situation and offer lots of positive encouragement. Right now she is a bit scared of flying bugs (before this is was dogs) and I have learned that the more knowledge she has about a situation the better she handles it. So we have been spending a lot of time at the library checking out books on insects and watching Youtube videos. I tell her it is ok to be nervous/scared but I remind her how much she loves playing outside and that we must figure out a way to make the outside ok with bugs around. We then go out and try to find the bugs she just learned about while trying to get us playing. It isn't perfect and she still gets nervous as is just something that takes time but it 10x better than a few months ago. It also helps that her younger sister is a bit of a daredevil so it gives her a bit of modeling.

Best of luck, you are doing great OP!

The most important thing you can do right now is work on your own impatience. It's the one thing you are entirely in control of, it's ripe for dealing with at any time, and it will make a big difference.