This doesn’t feel natural

[PoorPaddington]

Dropping Dd, 4 at pre school and her crying and wanting to be home with me and me making her go, when she could be at hone with me.
Why doesn’t this feel natural? Do we make our little ones part too soon from us?
Please someone remind me of the benefits of this and why I’m doing it if I don’t have to 🤷🏻‍♀️

There are a few things here...

I'm curious about your attachment style with your daughter. Are you protective, cautious, anxious or in "the way" a lot? I don't mean any of that negatively BTW! Children are wonderful emotion sponges, so she will feel it if you are unsure. Children must rely on their care-givers for cues that things are going to be fine. It's why when my daughter falls over and scrapes her-self I just pick her up and we carry on. No drama, no fuss.

The reason I ask is because you sound anxious about sending her away and a little over-attached. We as parents have to let go, let them experience things and thrive. I say that because you seem to think her being at home with you (and constantly being happy) is better than her feeling discomfort, working through it, meeting new children and then learning to deal with emotions in the future.

Her telling you she misses you etc is her way of shaping you to feel guilty. It's what children (ALL children) do.

Just some ideas:

Validate the fact she misses you AND remind her that she has some other children to play with at pre-school too.

Reinforce her going to school. What incentive does she have at the moment? Anxiety, sadness? Heap on the praise when she gets home. Make cakes, paint, take her out to play football... ANYTHING that reinforces school = good thing.

At the same time, I can feel your pain. Ours is only 2 and we have this to come. Though she can't wait to get rid of us! We took her to family recently (we don't see them often) and wow! She told us to go out! Just keep reminding yourself that an unhealthy attachment increases the chances of her having MAJOR psychological issues later. Sending her to meet new people is a way of getting her used to socialising with "the tribe" - the longer you wait, the harder it will be. Unless you want to have her at home until she is 40 (and if you do, that isn't healthy).

I personally don’t feel that kids “get used” to being dropped off by sending them when they aren’t ready. My step dd went to nursery full time from 9 months old and was never ready for school drop offs as at 5. She screamed and clung!
my other dd didn’t go to nursery at all. She went to preschool 3 mornings a week from age 3.5 but any time she didn’t want to go I didn’t force her in the door. I just took her home. I was a SAHM so was able to. I appreciate that not everyone can do this. By start of school at age 4 she was very confidentially walking in. She never felt like it was a punishment or something she was forced into and I never once had her scream or cling to me at drop off.

This.
The thing is it’s just a black and white chop.
Home with Mummy all day every day (in some cases) and then chop. Off you go to strangers for the day.
Of course they are going to struggle and want to be back where they know if safe with Mum.
This is totally unnatural for humans. The care giving would be shared more earlier on and then the child would venture out slowly. Spending more and more time away from his mother until completely independent. Not just dressed and left with people he doesn’t know.
Thats the society we’ve created though. Yes you can home school but society and living costs usually don’t allow for that and so few people do it that actually mixing with a wide amount of peers is impossible. Then you are the odd ones out later in life and how does that affect lift chances once schooling is over?
Do you home school right up to working age or make that chop in secondary school which surely is going to be extremely difficult.
So as we live in this society we generally have to abide by the rules to fit in later down the line. It’s hard but mostly they do settle and then enjoy going.

She'll be picking up on your anxieties.

Do you talk to her about your positive experiences of school?

Does she see you going out during the day? Don't tell her you are going back to sit in the house waiting to collect her!

This generation of covid DC's are going to find it harder socialising as they had a big gap of no social contact.

Does she do clubs?

How is she socially with other DC's? Does she know any DC's at school?

A headteacher once said to me that the most important lesson for DC's preparing for school is to learn to be told 'no'. She said lots struggle to settle in as they've never been told 'no' before!!

Could it be this? Is she used to everything revolving around her?

If you really don't want to continue you are free to homeschool. That's a good option for some DC's/ parents.

Keeping her home and sending her to school at 5 to an environment where the rest of her class are used to socialising and already have friendship groups will make it harder for her to find her niche, and can have long lasting detrimental effects on self esteem and ability to learn and fulfil potential

My SIL who lives abroad has her youngest aged 2 and 9 months starting school full time. The child is nowhere emotionally developed and still drinks a bottle of milk. I think it’s barbaric.

If it feels wrong keep her with you another year

My DD started last Monday.
Now when I say she has never been away from me I mean never!! Never stayed by herself with her Dad or overnight at Nanny’s. She is almost 4 1/2.
I’ve had all of the ‘oh you’re going to struggle when she starts school’ and ‘it’s not normal to never have any you time’ blah blah. But, she was a longed for baby, after almost a decade of trying and failed IVF she is our little miracle and I wanted to keep her close as long as I could.
I am knowingly over the top with worry, bumps, grazes, temperatures - everything. I contemplated not sending her until next term when she’d be 5 but she is definitely ready for it now. I have always been encouraging about how much fun she’ll have when she finally goes and that’s she’d make lots of friends so she has been excited to start.

Luckily, she is a confident, bright little girl and on Monday she told me “you’ll be fine Mummy, Daddy is with you this week so you’re not by yourself” went in and I didn’t even get a second glance off her 😭
Then this morning when Daddy went back to work she told me I could tidy her playroom for her 🙄😂
This week will be harder than last as DH is back in work, but I aim to keep myself busy - not just reading mumsnet.

They make little friends, have a little independence and it preps them for school.

It's a good preparation for school. I'm assuming she is old in her year so no option to defer her entry.

Preschool is great for preparing them for going to school.

@Twizbe She’s only just turned 4 in summer

@Staters V similar story here, regarding ivf etc and length of time! I’m not massively protective when she falls etc and am pretty laid back about all that, we also have a large friendship group and do lots of activities…it’s just she seems so..sad 😞but is fine when she’s out, so we’ll stick with it

Dts started school 4 days after they turned 4. Deferring wasn't an option at the time and looking back I don't think I would have done.

All children are individual.

Is this a school preschool doing school hours? Is there not a middle ground of a playgroup a couple
Of morning a week?

@abovedecknotbelow Its a Pre school, no playgroup where I am (abroad) so they start the pre school at the school she will go to at 6…they don’t have to start until 6. She goes three mornings per week, although they’re already fussing that she should come all day everyday

The best thing my nursery ever did was make me wait outside for 2 mins after I dropped them (crying) then look through the window.

They were bloody fine - the tears don't last long and it's great for socialising and making sure they can independently go to the loo, put on shoes, use cutlery etc.

I did used to make a big thing of 'mummy has to go to work now but you get to play!'
I made sure they knew I was not at home (even if I was sometimes working from there!)

It's great for their social skills, for making friends, for getting used to the school environment for when they're older and have to be there. I'm sure she'll soon get used to it. 😊

I personally think we do yes.

I was very attached to my mum. She ended up doing playground duties at my school so we could still be together.

Bless her, it was my worst worry (on top of all my others lol) that she’d be sad and upset. I really feel for you as you also know how hard it is to let them go.
Is she ok when you go out with your large group of friends? As due to our struggles to conceive, all of my friends children are lot older than my DD, 9, 10+ so she can’t really play with them when we meet up, it’s like just give them a phone and they’re set whereas she wants to play 😢
Obviously with our little ones being the ones to suffer through the pandemic I did worry as they were locked away for so long without contact with others. So I know a lot have struggled.
I hope she settles in a little more this week 💞
Strange question I know, but is she on packed lunches or school dinners? I made a big fuss of buying a cute lunchbag and let her decide on some of the things she can have in it. Got unicorn cookie cutters to make lovely unicorn sandwiches. Just little things to make it exciting for her.

My ds2 was only in pre school for a year and hated it, in the end he went in for just one morning and another morning where I went in to help out. I work for myself so aware that I was in a privileged position to be able to do that. He's just started school and so far isn't happy about going, I delayed his start so he was already 5 when started but still doesn't seem ready to me!

Ds1 never went to pre school and was only just 4 when he started school, he settled immediately and never had any issues leaving me to go, I think it really depends on the child!

Your daughter has never been in the sole care of her dad? In 4.5 years?

I had that with all three. Youngest two couldn't wait. One kept telling me Bye and the other told me "You can go now" I'm the one who cried all the way home. She when the oldest went to Uni. I cried all the way home then too.

It’s so tough I had the same. What kept me going was thinking I’d rather her get used to being apart from me in a pre school where they can give her a bit of TLC instead of trying to teach her and thinking next year when it’ll be school and they don’t have such a high staff ratio and it’s full time she needs to get used to it. It is of benefit at that age to persevere but it is difficult.

Reading your update I think she is picking up on the fact you don’t really want her to go and your anxiety to be honest. I was very much the same but you really have to try and hide your own sadness as they pick up on it.

Oh op, it is so heart wrenching when they do this. Have you asked the teacher how she is once she's in? Sometimes they just get in the habit of melting down before school, but actually have so much fun once there, but it's hard to get them out of the "routine" of being upset in the morning. With my daughter when we went through this stage, we'd try and talk to her the evening before about the best parts of school, which children she particularly likes, anything funny that happened that day, things she did that make her proud etc. And then talk through those things again in the morning, trying to keep a really positive spin on things. We would make up some random "homework" for her to do, and she'd be so excited to take it in, she'd forget about needing to feel sad, and over a few weeks, she was fine. When I say homework, literally a picture, or some air dry clay related to the topic they were learning (mammals for example, would just ask her to draw or make an animal, or stick animal stickers on a piece of paper), practise writing her name, some numbers etc, just something that would literally take a minute or two, and she'd be so proud of it, she was then excited for the next day to show her classmates and teacher. Might be worth a shot?

Nope. Not unless you count when I’m in the bath? He works long hours so would be at work when she wakes and ready for bed by the time he gets in. He’ll read her a bed time story while I have a soak in the tub. Then weekends are family time together.
I know everyone finds this strange not just you.

They cry briefly and then they hAve a great day. At least that's what my son does. He just doesn't like saying goodbye