to drop and run from my hysterical 3 year old

[veronicalake]

My 3yo has just started pre school. First week she was great. I had predicted she'd be a nightmare as i have never really had anyone to take her on a semi regular basis and she can be quite clingy. Her sister was the opposite but her brother also clingy but less demonstrative with it.

So last week she starts on the way there with 'i dont want to go' and finally we get there and she is hysterical when i try to leave. She actually grabs onto me and ends up scratching and pulling at me as they try and take her. It is awful.

However i do think part of it is for my benefit perhaps but i could be wrong.
I think ime the best way for this to be dealt with is short and sharp. Drop and run but it is hellish and i cant help questioning is this the right thing to do. So far after the initial hell she has settled fairly quickly and they have rang me to say as much.

AIBU just gritting my teeth and prising my screaming child off me? Feels awful.

Another vote for 'dump and run'.

I might hide in the office or somewhere, so I can check that DD has calmed down before I go, so I'm not worrying while I work! :)

been there, done that.

When ds was at preschool he cried every morning for the first half term . I used to just hand him over and walk away - it was horrible, but he settled fairly quickly after I left.

I was expecting the same when he started school but he ran in without a backward glance, then after a term he had a day off sick and it was as if the reality had hit home and we had tears every day for three weeks. I cajoled, offered bribes rewards, got cross (I knew he was fine as soon as I'd gone), we'd had chats to make sure there was nothing bothering him and I'd had chats with the teacher and nothing helped. I even used to say to him that "if you stop crying then I'll stay here and say bye to you properly, but if you keep crying then mrs E (the TA) will just take you into class," Then one day he came home and said "miss w says that if I cry tomorrow I'll lose my golden time," so I got on board with this idea - we went to the shops, bought some biscuits for the kids to have in golden time, he was excited about that and the next morning he ran in without a backward glance and we've never looked back.

it was IMO just a cycle that he had got into and which needed to be broken, although I was a bit of the teacher who clearly weilded some powere which I did not.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, and sometimes (often) it hurts you more than it hurts them.

And often they know exactly which buttons to push. Another child in his class cried every morning, but while his mother wasn't looking he would be smerking, knowing he was getting his own way, because she would stay, sometimes for an hour, to try to calm him, or even standing at the class window periodically waving to him so there was no chance of him getting out of it. Eventually the school insisted she drop him at the office and leave straight away and miraculously his crying stopped within a day once he learned that A he wouldn't get to go in with his friends and B his mother wouldn't be able to stick around where he could see her.

Drop and run. But you are lucky that the teacher will take her off you. My DS1s reception teacher would leave me languishing by the door and refuse eye contact, and I would have to beg for them to take him off me ;-)

Oh it is crap isn't it?

My DS was like this . Now he is nearly 15, 6'1" and can't bear to be in the same room as me

I remind him sometimes and he just grins and I wish I could tell the flustered, stressed mum I was all those years ago that it was all going to be OK.

Horrible to do but much the best strategy.
DD did it for few days but soon settled (day care rather than pre-school). I found giving her a time (as in - when you've eaten your lunch then I will come and get you' helped. So I would talk through a structure of the day with her (First you'll play some games and then you might be able to do some singing and then it will be snack time etc etc) so she had some idea of what was coming. Kept it vague since I didn't know exactly what they'd be doing but I always finished with 'And after you've had all that fun I'll come and get you'.

Also, if there is anything that the staff might need to know (if she's had a bad night for example, and might be tired) write it in a note that you can slip to them so that you can still get out quite quickly and aren't hanging around prolonging the agony waiting to talk to them. That was suggested by my dd's nursery and works well.

One of the other parents said his dd had sobbed hysterically every morning for about four months when she first started going, and he and his DW were starting to think they would need to rethink. They normally arrived quite early. One morning, they were a bit later and arrived at the same time as another three year old. This lad trotted off quite happily with nursery staff and didn't look back. Dad said his dd watched this,and the next morning, also trotted off happily with no problems. It was almost as though she was crying because she didn't realise it was possible to go to nursery without crying, and once she'd seen someone else arrive with no fuss, she copied!

Our nursery has a mobile in each room so you can phone or text to check your DC has settled down ok. Do they have this? I've only done it once when DD was doing her settling in visits, but it really helped me to know that DD was fine once I left.