hating preschool
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Anonymous
| I have a 3.5 year old who started a Montessori preschool program when she was almost 2. She was excited to start at the time (wanted to be like her big brother and go to school), but eventually started crying at dropoff pretty much every morning. In the two years since then, she has cried a significant amount of the time at dropoff, though teachers tell me she is usually fine shortly thereafter. She has one special friend at the school, but that friendship sometimes causes disruptions in class and the school wants to separate the two girls. I decided to try her in a different school/"camp" this summer to see if the Montessori environment was part of the problem. She did fine when dropped off at a local camp with her brother (they are not in the same age group so saw each other only at dropoff and lunch), but has now spent almost 4 weeks at a different center, which is basically a daycare/preschool with a "camp" option that I was hoping she would like and could stay at through the fall/next school year (my son is too old to go to this camp). Once again, she is crying/screaming every day. If I didn't work, I would simply keep her home at this point despite her age/needing some pre-k prep. But I do work, albeit part time. Do some kids just not handle school well until they are older? Is this a sign of some larger mental health/insecurity issues? I'm so so so tired of the screaming in the morning, for her sake and for mine. Any thoughts. I'm about to resign because a 3 year old hates preschool. |
Anonymous
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If she stops crying after dropoff and is fine during actual school/camp, then it's not that she hates preschool, she hates dropoff probably because she doesn't want to separate from you or your spouse or because she does not deal well with transitions (all normal for her age, by the way).
How does dropoff work with her - do you do it? Does your spouse do it? Or a caregiver? When she cries at dropoff, do you hang around and try to comfort her? This sometimes makes it worse for the kid. Or do you leave her with the teacher/camp counselor and discreetly take off quickly? Is she upset in the mornings at home before dropoff, or only upset once you get to school or camp? |
Anonymous
| Well, slightly different, but my DS, now a little over 2.5 yrs. still cries and protests at least 50% of the mornings in the transition to our nanny *who he adores and has been with since 4 mos. of age.* This has not been the case with DD. Some kids just suck at transitions and/or good byes to parents. |
Anonymous
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I started my almost-2 year old at an informal church-based nursery school and he screamed and cried at dropoff for several months. I tried staying with him to ease the transition, I tried giving him a kiss and leaving. I stayed in the hall and listened to him cry all morning. After 3 months of this, and hearing from the teacher that he cried off and on all day (for 3 hours), I decided to pull him. As soon as I made that decision, the teacher had a family emergency and quit, and another teacher took over the class. From that moment, DS was happy to go and only cried occasionally during the class.
It sounds like your DD did find one school/camp that worked for her, and has found two that haven't. It may have been the school format, class size or composition, or a particular teacher that worked for her. Can you try a new preschool this fall that might work out better for her? |
Anonymous
| Thanks all for the replies. She starts saying "I don't want to go" from the second she wakes up. She often starts crying at home, will stop when she accepts her fate in the car, then cries again when we get there. I think the main reason she liked going to the one camp was that her brother was there. I don't know if it's a transition issue or something bigger. But by 3.5 (not far from 4) it seems like this should be getting easier. |
Anonymous
But is she crying all day long or not? That's the issue. |
Anonymous
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Does she "hate preschool" or does she "hate dropoff/transition"?
Those are different things. Ask her teachers to tell you EXACTLY how long she is crying in the morning. Ask them not to sugar coat it - "please tell me the # of minutes she cried this morning. And if it's 20 minutes, please tell me, I really do want to know." If it's 2 or 3 minutes, or even 5 minutes, and then she goes off and plays, gets involved, and doesn't cry any other time during the day, then she likes preschool and hates the transition/drop off. If it's this, then you do very fast drop offs - create a short routine, do it (put away lunch box, something silly like a kiss on the nose, forehead and each ear) and then LEAVE. Prolonging it only prolongs the whole thing, because the hard thing is the saying goodbye - if that takes 20 minutes, then that's 20 upset minutes, plus it takes a while to come down off that upset. If she cries 15 or 20 minutes or more, or she calms in 5 minutes but an hour later she cries for another 10-20 minutes about missing Mom, wanting to go home, etc, then she hates preschool. Also, does she ever talk about her friends? Does she ever talk about friends at school/camp? You could, alternatively, hire a babysitter, pull her from all preschool, and have her stay home this year, then try her in preschool the year before kindergarten. If she's 31/2 years old now, and she lives in the DMV, she will be going to kindergarten in 2018, so you have time. |
Birdmom5
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| Did you ever find out how long she cries for? I think it would be interesting see if its just a transition thing or something bigger. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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Have you tried outright bribery?
If she can go a morning without crying there is a reward when you pick her up? I think it would be worth it at this point. |
Anonymous
| I had a very similar situation. We ended up switching preschool's and the crying stopped almost immediately. The previous posters are right - you need to figure out if it's the separation she doesn't like, or the school/teacher that she doesn't like. In our case, it was definitely the latter. We switched from Montessori to play-based, FWIW. Montessori isn't a good fit for all kids. I would ask to meet with the teacher privately and ask for her candid feedback on whether your child seems happy/engaged at school throughout the day, setting aside the drop-off transition. If the answer is that your kid isn't happy or engaged most of the time at school, then I'd switch schools - and maybe consider play-based instead of Montessori. If she's happy other than drop-off, then you could consider delaying preschool for awhile longer or just stick it out and make the drop-off as quick as possible. Maybe try having the other parent or a nanny drop off if possible - my kid always had the hardest time separating from me. |
Anonymous
| I did a week long trial at Equinox gym where I didn't workout but actually just hung out in the kids club an hour a day w my son to see if he could like it (he couldn't). While there kids cried on and off, the parents would show up after their workouts and ask "how'd she do?" And the caregivers would consistently lie and sugar coat the situation and downplay the crying or not even bring it up. Don't count on teachers to tell you the exact truth or even to see everything. Trust your kid, the crying means she doesn't like it (something about it), and if u want your kid happy then move her to a different place where she is joyful and not crying. So hard.....sorry for all the upset for mom and kiddo. |
Anonymous
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We have been in a similar situation and I think it's more that my son hates the separation part and wants to stay home with me sometimes. He is 3.5 and will start again next month so we'll see how he does. Last year it was just half day and he was extremely happy Sept-Jan then all of a sudden began protesting drop off. The teachers told me he calmed within 1 minute and immediately began engaging in activities. He didn't cry after that. Like your child, he's hsve mornings he'd wake up and begin saying he didn't want to go. It's hard! We let him stay home once or twice then it got worse because he thought he could sway us. He went to a camp this summer and was ok at first again then did the crying at drop off on day 3 or 4. Again was told he snapped out of it as soon as he realized he was stayhng. With my son, once we became consistent and stopped coddling too much when he started the protests, the crying did stop. There was a girl in his class that would cry for a long time after mom left and sometimes more throughout the morning - I think that's different.
The funny thing is that during camp this summer he told me he really missed his school and wanted to go there. We'll see how this Sept goes in our case ... But OP I think like others have said, you need to get to the bottom of whether it's a separation issue or truly not liking the school/teacher/?. |
Anonymous
| How long does she spend in the Montessori school each day? If she is there all day maybe it's too much. Maybe try a part time play based preschool and see if that helps. The Montessori school sounds kind of heartless actually - a 3 year old cries every day and has one friend and they want to separate them? |
Anonymous
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I would pull her and put her in a play based preschool. We've done Montessori and play-based and bar none my daughter was MUCH happier in play-based. She did fine in Montessori, but she pretty much skipped to play-based preschool about two weeks after the switch. You need to find a place and a teacher that's warm and fuzzy and does more hand-holding it sounds like.
Transition crying can be normal, but the anxiety about going from the time she wakes up is a red flag. |
Anonymous
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This may or may not be an option but, can you find a shared nanny? I feel badly for kids when they hate school this early. I would hate to think that this early perception of school will somehow have an affect when they are in school. But, I agree with the others when they say if she stops crying when you leave. Then it might be transitions ( my DD was the same)
Good luck! |