how would you deal wtih this in a "how to talk" way - ds refusing to leave nursery (long)

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Ds (nearly 3) has been having a huge tantrum when I go to collect him from nursery at lunch time. apart from being horribly embarrassed, I want to deal with it in a better way. Here's what happened today:
ds "mummy!" runs over really pleased to see me.
me "hello, ds, shall we go to the park?"
ds runs off and hides in climbing frame
me "come on ds, lets go to the park and do some climbing and go on the slide"
ds "no!!!!!!!!!!" lays on floor
me "lets go to the park and maybe have an ice cream"
ds lays on floor

at this I put down dd and lift him up. He screams and lays on floor again. Nursery nurses all staring, I am now hot under collar. I tell him dd and I are going to park without him and go out of garden. Several minutes later I go back, he hasn't batted an eyelid. Anyway more attempts at persuasion followed by me losing it, gaining superhuman strength, picking him up with dd in the middle like the filling in a sandwich, and carting him off to car screaming.

This is regular course of events. What shall I do tomorrow please??

That could back fire though as they might see it as an adventure!

I'd just pick him up briskly and cheerfully without feeling embarrassed at having lost it. Nothing to be ashamed of imo as long as you keep your cool.

You'd think, but it really does work... well, maybe cos I am generally very silly...

so today it goes like this:
ds "mummy!!!" then runs off
me "hello ds, would you like to play for a little longer?"
ds runs away
me"ok ds, 5 minutes, I can see you are doing some lovely climbing"
I chat to nursery nurses, talk to sweet little girls about dd and wait while ds bombs around chasing the big boys
me "just 1 minute left now ds, then we'll go home and play together"
1 min later
"ok ds it's time to go home now"
he wriggles away, bombs off again, I lose my faith in HTT and pull out the final resort
" would you like some chocolate animal biscuits?"
he happily came along as I wouldn't open the packet til he was strapped into the car. Am rubbish at this

HTT is best combined with bribery IMVHO

I would call that a huge success

DD is 2.5 and is doing this almost every afternoon now. I am going to use bribary tomorrow.

Collection today even worse, I tried waiting etc etc and ended up with a bemused dd being carried to the car by a nursery nurse and me carrying ds kicking and really sobbing. Rather than being annoyed today, I actually felt sorry for him, he was so upset.
Plan for tomorrow - I found out today that all the children go inside from the garden at 1pm so I intend to arrive a little later and wait til everyone goes inside before getting ds to leave. He absolutely loves following the pre-schoolers around and its the only time of his day he gets to see them so I think that's the main issue.
Empathy seems to have no effect btw, he just stared into space when I try to discuss stuff with him.

Sounds like a good idea. You have REALLY empathised by working out the problem. (I hope that is the problem and he's angle child tomorrow). I solved a problem 2 niths ago in a similar way. DS was buggering about at bath time every night. Finally worked out (I think) that he doesn't want to share the bath with DD (8months) lest she accidentally touch him. By not even attempting to combine baths and asking him to go up to bath 15 minutes later, he just does it. Grrr. Why can't they just be 30?!

You're doing well. Keep trying different angles until you get to the root of it. I sometimes forget they are real people and although their motives and actions are often a bit confused there is a tangled logic in there somewhere if you dig deep enough.

Recently we had a massive issue over teeth cleaning. Took me ages but I eventually discovered that the residual toothpaste in her mouth was stinging a sore on her sucking thumb, which she wanted to suck to sleep right after teeth clean of course. She couldn't extrapolate all that, so just kicked and screamed and refused to clean her teeth. I felt so proud when I worked it out! No toothpaste until sore healed. Problem solved!

HUGE success today. I made ds a card from Woody and Buzz (Toy Story) with a drawing of them on the front and a message that said "we've really missed you. Please come home and play with us, love, Woody and Buzz". He showed the card to his little friend and then held my hand and came home straight away nicely. Amazing. But what happens tomorrow? A new card/letter from a different toy?

What a great idea and I am glad it worked. Maybe tomorrow just mentioning that they missed him might work. Can you take the same card back though for another day or make another one? You are so good to make the effort...I really wish I put that much time into parenting.

I look forward to hearing what you did and how it went tomorrow.

You could whisper in his ear 'I'll buy you some crispies if you come'
Or is that wrong?

lol Mrs Ruffalo

I posted about this very probelm a couple of years ago and was reassured that it wasn't just my child who didn't want to come home ...

So as everyone has said - no need to be embarrassed by this - it's transitions in general they find difficult at this age

Agree about giving advance warning plus

two other things worked for me:

(1)role-playing the night before (repeat this often) so instead of telling them how NOT to behave, tell them how you would like them to behave

ie "when I come to collect you it would be lovely if you did x, y and z - Mummy is so looking forward to seeing you tomorrow etc etc" keeping it simple and pointing out rewards ie more time to go to park afterwards if less time spent screaming etc ...

(2) counting down from 10 ie can you collect your coat and bag and come here before I get to nought? sort of thing (turned in to a game) - it's surprisingly successful

I haven't read all the posts so someone may have already suggested something similar.

DS did this to me for several weeks when picking him up from the childminder (he's 23 months). In the end I bought him a special Night Garden cool bag for his lunch. He loves it but I only let him carry it to and from the childminder's house (harsh but I was desperate!). When it's time to go the childminder gets it and says it's time to take Iggle Piggle home and that DS needs to get his bag. DS then carries it to the door without too much fuss (most of the time)! I think it helps that sometimes there is something left in it e.g. a tangerine/ small biscuit etc so he likes to raid it when he's sat down to see if there is a "surprise".

I am in exactly the same boat.
DS (3.25) comes running up and says hi then runs back to his friends. We chat to the nursery staff for a while but he never wants to come.
When we do manage to get him in the car, he mostly seems to create all the way home which can then continue into the evening.
On days where he's happy to come home, he then creates when he gets home! He seems tired but won't have a nap at lunch as he gave that up months ago. He's had tea so isn't hungry.

I'll be trying some of the ideas above. He seems to respond better to warnings of time in other situations so will try that first

Nice work, shoppingbags!
I'm amazed the HTT 'in writing' method worked. You're very creative.
Who knows what will happen tomorrow, but one day at a time, I say!
Keep us posted.

OH i thought it was just me and my ds didnt like me or prefers the nursery staff! When i go for mine age 26 months - he looks at me frowns then grins then runs away and hides under table whereby i have to drag him out by the legs - he wriggles whilst i talk to staff about what an angel he has been for them (i never beleive that tosh!) and then angelically will walk out as long as i promise to let him walk down the 3 flights of stairs thats takes us oooooooo about another 15 mins!

I was amazed too. I knew that he wouldn't give a monkeys if the note was from me, but Woody and Buzz did the trick. I'm thinking Postman Pat may send him a postcard tomorrow