{
 "title": "Separation anxiety in children: US search interest up 80% since 2016",
 "description": "US search interest in separation anxiety in children rose about 80% from 2016 to 2025, and school-related searches peak each August or September. Chart and CSV.",
 "url": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/separation-anxiety-searches",
 "question": null,
 "measure": "Search interest, index (one scale for both lines)",
 "unit": "Google Trends index (shared scale)",
 "source": {
  "short": "Google Trends",
  "name": "Google Trends, search interest in \"separation anxiety toddler\", \"separation anxiety in children\", \"separation anxiety school\" and \"separation anxiety dog\", United States, monthly (retrieved September 25, 2026)",
  "url": "https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-01-01%202026-09-24&geo=US&q=separation%20anxiety%20toddler,separation%20anxiety%20in%20children,separation%20anxiety%20school,separation%20anxiety%20dog",
  "license": "Data source: Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends)",
  "licenseUrl": "https://support.google.com/trends/answer/4365538"
 },
 "license": "Data source: Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends)",
 "method": "Google Trends values are relative, not counts. All four searches were downloaded in one query, so they share one scale, where 100 marks the month with the highest relative search interest across the four (July 2021, for \"separation anxiety dog\"). A value of 0 can mean there was too little data. The children line adds up the three children's searches; each line is the average of the twelve monthly values in a year. 2026 is left out of the chart because the year isn't over — January–September 2026 is in the monthly CSV (September is partial). Values come from a sample and may vary between downloads. Retrieved September 25, 2026.",
 "takeaways": [
  "Search interest in separation anxiety in children rose about 80% between 2016 and 2025: the combined index for the three searches was 14.2 in 2016 and 25.7 in 2025. \"Separation anxiety in children\" and \"separation anxiety school\" roughly doubled; \"separation anxiety toddler\" rose by more than half.",
  "The only year-over-year decline came in 2020 (13.6, down from 18.3 in 2019). Search interest in \"separation anxiety dog\" rose that year, peaked in 2021, and has declined every year since.",
  "Search interest in \"separation anxiety school\" rises with the start of the school year: from 2016 through 2025, its highest month was August or September every year. In 2021–2025, August and September averaged 7.9 on the index — almost twice the rest of the year (4.2).",
  "Search interest in dogs is still higher (63.7 in 2025), but the gap has narrowed from about 3.4 times the children's figure in 2016 to 2.5 times in 2025."
 ],
 "series": [
  {
   "name": "Children",
   "points": [
    {
     "period": 2016,
     "value": 14.2
    },
    {
     "period": 2017,
     "value": 15.8
    },
    {
     "period": 2018,
     "value": 18
    },
    {
     "period": 2019,
     "value": 18.3
    },
    {
     "period": 2020,
     "value": 13.6
    },
    {
     "period": 2021,
     "value": 16.3
    },
    {
     "period": 2022,
     "value": 20.7
    },
    {
     "period": 2023,
     "value": 22.8
    },
    {
     "period": 2024,
     "value": 24.2
    },
    {
     "period": 2025,
     "value": 25.7
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "name": "Dogs",
   "points": [
    {
     "period": 2016,
     "value": 48.8
    },
    {
     "period": 2017,
     "value": 53.7
    },
    {
     "period": 2018,
     "value": 60.2
    },
    {
     "period": 2019,
     "value": 66.9
    },
    {
     "period": 2020,
     "value": 72.2
    },
    {
     "period": 2021,
     "value": 84.9
    },
    {
     "period": 2022,
     "value": 80.5
    },
    {
     "period": 2023,
     "value": 74.6
    },
    {
     "period": 2024,
     "value": 67.9
    },
    {
     "period": 2025,
     "value": 63.7
    }
   ]
  }
 ],
 "csv": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/separation-anxiety-searches.csv",
 "chart_embed": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/embed/separation-anxiety-searches",
 "image": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/og/separation-anxiety-searches.png",
 "credit": "Raising Stoics (raisingstoics.com)"
}