Is it normal to feel weird about child leaving reception?

[heartbroken22]

Especially your first child. I have this really weird feeling like sadness and anxiety. Maybe because it's a sign she's growing up? Mind you I always fear the unknown. Her reception class is so nice and the teachers are lovely. It's just leaving that safe and secure environment.

I feel like that every year. It is the feeling that things will never be the same again. I really, really like the teacher ds has had this year.

I even felt that feeling when ds was leaving the class of a teacher I didn't like though...The feeling confused me that year!!

I felt like that because he'd come a long away since the beginning of Reception and I was worried what the start of year 1 might look like.

Yeah I feel the same as both of you. I could do with a cry which is really really weird.

I feel like this every year! Weirdly I was the most composed I've ever been when DC1 went to secondary school, despite nearly crying the year before when he left Y5 at the mere thought of it.

If you have a cry in the playground on the last day of term, I guarantee you won't be the only one! Probably a few more standing outside Y6 than reception to be fair, but still totally normal.

Play the song Slow Down by Nichole Nordeman, and have a good cry! That should help get it out your system. But, yes I can 100% relate to how you're feeling.

My dh doesn't really get it.

Yes! We did transition day yesterday which I knew about but I wasn't prepared for them to be lining up in the new place in the playground and it really took me by surprise. I actually got teary. My DD has a very end of August birthday so she's not even 5 for another five weeks and it's all going so quickly

I know what you mean. To reassure you, Year 1 isn’t so different to reception really, they evolve the learning gradually.

It's definitely going too fast, my eldest has just turned 5 and is moving up to Y1 too. She's so excited to be one of the 'big kids', and seeing her chatting happily about her new backpack and the new playground she'll be playing in makes me really excited for her - there's still a teeny tug at my heart though!

I'm mostly just looking forward to her finishing so that I can have her home for six weeks. Watching her and her little sisters grow makes me so proud and is the most wonderful thing ever, I just wish it would slow down a little bit.

I tried to give a very quick thank you 'speech' when handing over the end of year gifts to our Yr 2 teacher last week and couldn't even speak!

Years ahead for you, but I sobbed watching my DC collect A level results - they and their friends had become young men with their futures ahead of them. It was almost unbearably poignant. The end of term always make me think of this poem:

Walking Away
by C Day-Lewis
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

I feel like it as a teacher every year! You make a family you spend every day with, then have to say goodbye 🥲 It’s bittersweet to see them moving on.

I've tended to have it when my DC leave one setting to go to another. So from CM onto school etc. I didn't really notice when DC1 moved from infants to juniors although it was Covid. DS2 is moving up this year and I have to admit I felt a bit sad taking him in today. He goes into a different entrance next year and that's the last time I'll walk either of my kids round that side of the school now.

Mine is leaving Year 1 for Year 2 (also first child, and a year ahead of yours).

your post made me think about how I’ve felt - and actually , no , I haven’t felt this way. I think this is because DS is leaping ahead in terms of his curiosity, thirst for new things to do, play with and learn and there’s always that element of “we are so excited for this next year/I’m so excited to finally be 5, 6, 7 etc”) that prevents any sadness.

like this year - as Year 1 is ending - hes played his first Cricket match for our Under 8s team, and it was an away match too, he’s exploring his first circuits kit, learning how to make guacamole, salsa and a three cheese dip, and is engrossed in a new Whizz Pop Bang subscription we’ve started - it’s just all too exciting for him (and therefore us) so - sadness hasn’t come into it.

@Butteredtoast55 thanks for sharing the poem. I haven't read it before, but the last line must have been quoted a lot. (I don't have any DCs so have nothing to add otherwise)

We had an Reception end of year performance today for DD2. It was very emotional - especially as they will be split and put into mixed Y1/2 classes so the little group of friends DD2 has had since nursery will be separated. The Reception teachers at our school are fantastic though, really go above and beyond, they've had both my DDs now and it was sadder this time!

Yes, and you will probably feel like this every year. I always do around this time of year, I feel unsettled and a bit emotional. I hate change and I hate (and love in equal measure) how much they're growing and changing. I find extra wine and chocolate always helps.

My daughter's nursery had a 'graduation' ceremony today for the children leaving and starting reception in September - they put up some pictures of the children when they first started v today - I burst into tears! I can't believe how quickly it all goes - not worried at all about my dd starting school, more worried about me!

Every. Single. Year.

However, DS1 left school after GCSEs last month and I felt nothing. He (hopefully) starts 6th form college in September and I'm very excited about it! I'm now enjoying watching them grow up and see the kind of people they are growing into.

MarianosOnHisWay, it's nice, in a way, to think some teachers feel this way. It shows that they love the children and their job.

Oh I remember those days. Mine are grown up now but those end of school years got me every time.
I actually liked September as I always saw it as a new start.

I'm going through this right now, OP, and last year I found my DC leaving nursery tough too.

Little did I know that not quite a year later I'd be feeling the same thing again; ironically, about leaving the place I was feeling so anxious about her going to!