Reply to Fellow PK3 newbies, post your lottery nerves here!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m nervous about my kid starting preschool. She’s a COVID baby who has been at home with a parent or a relative since she was born, and I’m so nervous about sending her off away from us! It’ll be good for her but wow it’s hard just thinking about it right now. We’re trying to put her in more activities and then summer camps to get her ready but I’m thinking of next school year with a mix of joy and dread. [/quote]

The biggest challenge for clingy kids who know only home and family or private nannies is, in my experience, not the kids' ability to adapt to PS3. The issue is parents - as it almost always is with kids. My kid cried their eyes out at drop off every day for a week or two. I reminded myself that my kid was going to be fine and they were taking their cues from me. I hugged them, but then told them I'd see them at pick up and walked away. Most kids who react this way are only doing it to manipulate parents. Once they figure out they are going to go back every day they relax and usually love pre-school. I watched in horror parents who were in tears as they left their kids in class each day and then had the audacity to say their kids weren't ready; as if their behavior wasn't the driver of the way the kids reacted.

I'm sure lots of DCUM readers will take offence to this, but parents who say "my kid isn't ready" are projecting. Your kid will be fine. If this is emotional for you and you need to melt down for the first few days/weeks, do yourself and your kid a favor and DON"T do it in front of them.

P.S. PS3 teachers are inhuman gods. I cannot imagine having to deal with a classroom full of 3 and 4 year olds every day. I used to volunteer for an hour or two and I went straight home for bourbon![/quote]

There's some truth to this. Some. Parents can make clinginess worse and sometimes the clinginess is caused by parents who are making basic mistakes in terms of drop-off or the way they talk about school or some other way that they convey to the child that school isn't the right place for them.

But also some kids are clingier than others. Some kids are slow to warm. Being among the youngest can be a factor, as can prior experience in group care settings (or lack thereof). A preschooler who is struggling with separation anxiety is not some weird outlier and you don't need to indict the parents for it -- it's not an abnormal behavior and most kids grow out of it with time.

Also, if you haven't experienced having a child who is among the youngest in their cohort, maybe don't assume you know what the deal is. I have an August birthday and some things are harder/different for my kid, at least in ECE grades. He is almost a full year younger than some other kids in class. This is neither good nor bad, it is just how it is. If you see my kid crying at drop off, assuming that I'm just a bad parent instead of considering "oh that child is at a different place developmentally than some other kids in class" is just very arrogant. You don't know.[/quote]

"There's some truth to this", now allow me to illustrate your point and show you how parents like me lack any self awareness and in fact do exactly what you accused us of doing. Also, we're martyrs and you are persecuting us. [/quote]

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