Desperately needing advice regarding my 4 year old and pre school

[getal]

My little boy is 4 and has been going to the same pre school for 2 years. He's never been one to absolutely love pre school but he will go in happily and enjoy his time there.

Since returning to pre school in September, it's been absolutely horrific. This morning, I've sent him in with no shoes on and had to make him a pack up breakfast because he refused to eat anything. He's cried all morning, I've had to battle to get him dressed. It's awful, he cries, screams, kicks all the way there and then pre school have to help me get him out of the car. I leave in tears.

However as soon as he gets through the door, he's fine. He stops crying and goes off to play and you would never think anything was wrong. His pre school are fab, they always ring me within 10/20 mins to let me know he's fine and even take the phone over to him and I can hear him laughing and enjoying himself. He comes out of pre school happy and tells me what a great day he's had!

I'm at a complete and exhausted loss on what to do. Pre school have said to send him in every day for a morning instead of the 3 full days he goes now. He has 2 days a week at home with me and while I wanted to make the most of this and spend some proper time with him before he starts school next year, it might not be benefitting him because he would rather be with me than be at school.

I have asked him why he doesn't want to go and he just says 'because I love you and I want to be with you' which is obviously lovely. He's a very shy little boy, he does some clubs etc and I try make him as social as possible. He has 4 older siblings and when he's at home, he's absolutely not shy!

Any advice? Any tactics? Anyone been through this? I feel like a need a large gin coffee by 9am every morning.

I am in the same predicament with my daughter. She's 2 not 4, so not quite the same, but she cries from the moment she gets dressed to the moment I drop her off at kindergarten, where she happily runs in and gets on with her day.

I found myself getting annoyed with her today. I didn't show it, but I was just so frustrated - she has an amazing time there (four mornings a week, 8am-1pm) and talks about her little pals when she gets home. It's just the morning transitions.

Im going to stick around here to see if anyone has any advice - hope that's ok!

Could it be that he’s missing the older ones that have started school?sometimes children find the transition from one of the youngest to in the September being one of the older ones difficult. If he’s shy perhaps he’s missing the older childrens play & hasn’t found anyone to link up with.

Where does your son think you are when he's in nursery? I used to have to tell my son that I had to go to the office and how boring and quiet it was etc. It really helped him as he wanted to be with me doing fun things, he didn't necessarily want to be sitting quietly with me.

He did have some friend that he played with who are now at school. He's just turned 4 so one of the older ones. We did have a party for him and invited all his friends who are still in pre school as I was worried about this but pre school tell me he has a couple of friends who he plays with. And DS also comes out and tells me he's played with his friends.

It could be a case of this though. I wish I knew! He's been there 2 years and it's just come out of the blue.

He thinks I'm just doing jobs, I am a sahm as I have an older child with additional needs (who goes to school absolutely fine!). Today I told him I was going to the car wash - he absolutely hates the car wash. He said it was fine, he would go too and just close his eyes!

I would tell my 4 year old that I was going to be doing the most boring chores in the world ( cleaning the toilet, hanging out washing etc) and not leaving the house. I'd say " it's really boring, I won't have time to play with you. You'll have more fun at preschool!"
He'd ask if I was going to the shops or seeing anyone I'd say no, just cleaning.
He settled down once he knew he wasn't missing anything ( of course I'd go out but he never knew!).

What does he currently gain from how he acts before nursery? Is it extra attention? Extra hugs? It’s unusual for anyone to continue any behaviour which has no discernible benefits at all, so look careful at the interactions- even ones you think are negative- to see if there are any “wins”.
Then mention nursery once only, “morning Tom it’s time to get up, we will get dressed have breakfast and then walk to nursery” and then refuse to engage in any kind of discussion about it. Be calm and repeat instructions only eg “we are getting dressed now” but discuss other things normally or even breezily- “oh look at what big brother has found to watch on Tv” etc. Do not engage with any tantrums and don’t plead etc. Be firm but matter of fact and low key, do what needs done, distract
round it, offer a choice like shall we walk today or are you going in the buggy (rather than carry him- i suspect he is enjoying being babied somewhat!)
This too shall pass- but try to identify and stop the reward.

Transitions are tough for little ones and you can't really negotiate or discuss because you aren't dealing with a rational mind here.

Temporarily, I think the preschool is right that every day just for the mornings might be better to help acclimatise to the transitions, so that it's normal and every day but not for long. You can swap back to full days once settled there.

Another thing that might help is that in the last few minutes of each session, could the staff help him to identify a thing he can really look forward to doing tomorrow, that you can talk about exvitedly in the morning?

It takes a while for a child to learn to understand that they are still being loved by and looked after by you even when they can't see you. Emphasise that you've always got a hug for him in your heart, teach him to think about how there are countless people who love him who he doesn't see every day like grandparents and cousins etc and they go on loving him on days they don't see him, and it's normal not to be able to spend all our time with the people we love most but we are still linked by love wherever we are. Making sure he has a good place to go to for learning and playing when he isn't with you is just one of the ways you look after him. This is a big concept and he won't understand right away (see above, not dealing with a rational mind) but repeated often enough and it gets through.

To some extent the fuss is a performance that he feels he needs to to to express the magnitude of how much he thinks he will miss you, but once you are gone he has better things to do than perform. He will grow out of this stage and start going in happily soon enough and that can hurt a little, wheh they run in without a backward glance or even a "bye mum" but it's a natural progression as they grow up.

Yes this is what I'm trying my hardest to do. This morning I got up early, made his pack up and put it on the car so everything was ready to go. I'm trying so hard not to engage but I've had things thrown at me and being hit and kicked this morning so it's difficult. Im giving him very little engagement.

I think next week he needs to go every morning and see if that makes a difference. Its hard on him because he doesn't know when he's going and when he's got a day with me.

It's too far to walk to school but I did think about trying to go on the bus one day instead of in the car but I can't do that everyday so probably not the best idea

Totally agree. Don’t pander to any whining. Just get on with getting yourself ready to go. Take him there, kiss, cheery goodbye and off you go. He will soon learn that the whinging will get him nowhere

Yes I agree. I've never had this with my older children and there must be something that has triggered it as he's been there 2 years.

I've spoken to school this morning and they said he calmed down as soon as he was through the door, he's eaten his breakfast and now sat playing cars with his friends quite happily so all this fuss is clearly just to get at me rather than the fact he doesn't like school.

He does get a lot of love from me, maybe too much and that's part of the issue (I never felt love from my parents as a kid so I can't help but think I give my own kids too much purely because I never want them to feel like I did)

We had this off and on with one of my daughters - would kick up when the routine changed (and even though he is at same school, coming back after being on a summer routine will feel like a change). Some things that have worked for us:

• have someone else do drop offs for a couple of weeks? My daughter threw a fit when I did drop off, but no problem at all for her dad. We then reverted back to me, and she had forgotten about the drama
• give him something like a small toy to hug or stone to rub - tell him every time he does that you will know he is thinking of you
• talk to him about school being his job- he has to go and do x,y,z so that he can be ready for school or help mom
• i know it is hard to leave a crying child, but don’t let drop off becomes a major scene. Keep it short and sweet (a hug, a kiss, I will miss you and can’t wait to see you again end of day) and then leave. Trust the staff to take care of him

personally I wouldn’t change to 5 days a week mornings only. He has the whole year to work through this before school starts. I would also value days of 1:1 time while you can!

So our absolutely brilliant school didn't allow part days for this reason. It is extremely unsettling for a child. He has 3 full days then 4 off days, he has to get used to 2 sets of routines. He isn't able to consistently make or be with a friend, if those friends are also on different days. Even worse if your 3 days are spread out rather than consecutive. I would put him in full time and maybe shorter hours, and see how well he settles in.

I spend the whole morning talking about the friends DS will see (he repeats their names) and by the time we arrive he's usually happy to see them and doesn't notice I've left.

One thing you could try that sometimes works with my DC is getting him something really fun to play with in the car that stays in the car... an interactive maze book, binoculars or fiddle toy or something like that. So he actually wants to get in the car so he can play with it.

Then, when you get there, straight out of the car, hug, kiss, breezy "Mummy will see you later" and push him through the door and leave.