My 4yo daughter loves to do things with me. I'm pretty sure this is normal for a kid her age. She follows me around the house (when she's not at preschool) participating in chores, helping me with whatever I'm doing, and with a non-stop stream of questions. I love this about her.
The problem comes when she needs to do something separately from me. For example, go to the bathroom. She'll state she needs to go, and run off to do so, only after instructing me (she's an only child) to 'not do anything until I'm back!'. Because she can't stand to miss out on anything 'interesting' that mamma is doing in her absence.
Another example, she's engrossed in a toy and I need to pop downstairs to get something. She will absolutely throw a fit if I don't wait for her to finish what she's doing and let her come down with me for the 1 min I'm downstairs.
For the most part, I try to accommodate her as best I can, but I do emphasise that sometimes I need to do things on my own (as interesting as they may be) and she needs to respect my boundaries that there are some things that I can choose to do on my own. This results in a tantrum. Previously when she was younger I was accustomed to letting those work their course, but now that she's older and they're less common, I wonder if there's a better way that I can use to work with her.
Is there anything else I can do to help her work through this fear of missing out? I don't think it's really a separation issue (she'll be happy to be separate from me if I'm doing something she considers 'boring').