Problems leaving child at school

[ghosty]

Hi,
Just been on the phone to a friend who said I could post her problem on MN to see if anyone had any words of wisdom or tips ...

Her DD is 5 and a half and started school in April. She is now in her third term (bearing in mind we haven't had long mid year holidays in NZ as the summer holidays are over christmas) at school and is still clinging on to her mum and crying every morning. My friend tried a star chart that worked for a while but has let it go as things seemed to improve but now have gone pear shaped again.
Her DD goes to a lovely school with small classes. Her teacher is great apparently and she loves school when she is there but just can't seem to let her mum go in the morning.
6 months on my friend is getting quite low about this ...

Any tips?

ta x

Message withdrawn

I have been struggling with this one myself. Two things that seem to help - 1)having an adult on hand to hand the child over to - eg. Mummy: 'Why don't you tell Ms. G about the pumpkin we carved last night" Ms. G then holds hand, I give a quick kiss and slip out the door quickly. 2) having a friend to go to.
The other thing that helps is if I am very firm and consistent, and don't hang about, otherwise it just prolongs it.
HTH - sympathy to your friend, it is hard.

We had a few weeks of this with ds when he recently started school. It is awful being the only mum in the playground with a hysterical crying child.

I have to confess I bribed him with a small chocolate ( a colourful foil covered caramel filled chocolate fish to be precise). I told him that if he didn't cry I would meet him at the classroom door at the end of the day with a chocolate fish..and it did the trick....we had to keep it up for a week or so but then he was fine until half term.
That said, he regressed on Monday (going back after half term) and cried again, so he was promised a fish for tuesday if he didn't cry, and he was OK today.

Lots of luck to your friend.

How about a lucky pebble or similar in your friend's DD's pocket for her to squeeze when she goes in?

Otherwise I would enlist the help of the school - my friend had this with her ds (for over a year) and it was sorted in under a week when the Head quietly promised to give him a special sticker if he went in by himself with no crying.

A friend of mine had great success with a similar problem by writing a little note to her dd and putting it in her coat pocket - just something simple such as "Dear Lucy, I hope you have a fun day at school today. Lots of love, Mummy and Daddy". Every day they wrote a different little note and 'Lucy' was not allowed to read it until after they had left: she enjoyed them so much and looked forward to reading them so much, that she learned to endure being left better. Also she had the comfort of her special letter throughout the day if needed.

Another thing that can work well to break a cycle is to get someone else to drop the child off for a couple of weeks. Is this possible?

could someone else take her for a couple of days..break the habit

Thanks for the replies everyone, I will pass them on ...
I think she will like the 'lucky pebble' or 'letter' idea. I also like the 'getting a special sticker from the teacher' idea too (if it were my child having a problem but I am not sure my friend's DD would care much about that) ...
She can't have anyone else take her DD to school as they don't live near the school and no other children from the school lives anywhere near them ... but they have tried with my friend's DP taking their DD in but she is just as clingy with him so that hasn't worked ... that was one to the things I suggested as that broke the cycle with my DS at Kindy (my dad took him to kindy for a couple of weeks when I had just had DD and we never had a problem after that).