Hi all,
Any advice would be much appreciated.
My child is in Year 1 and been at the school since age 2 in their nursery. He's always been reliably happy at school, is popular with a nice group of friends, and does reasonably well in his subject. He likes and respects his teacher and TA and is very comfortable in the environment.
First day back from the Christmas break, he was absolutely fine, but on subsequent drop offs, he's been complaining of stomach pains and feeling sick. On the first day this happened, the TA called me to collect him before lunch but he was absolutely fine on arrival back home. I put it down to a blip. But since then, I've been struggling with getting him into school.
Having eliminated anything physical - both via the doctor, and by the fact that he's absolutely fit and well at home and over the weekend - I guess this is some type of separation anxiety, or general anxiety over school.
When I'm trying to drop him into breakfast club, he says he wants to stay with me.
I'm trying to gloss over his feelings of sickness and keep distracting him. Last week I bribed him with having a sleepover with me if he went into school nicely, and we had two good drop offs as a result.
However this morning, he was back to the sobbing and tummy pains.
I'm not sure what to do for the best, so any experiences you have to share, or resources you can direct me to would be appreciated.
(Also, I have talked to the teachers and to his friends' parents to try and find out if there's any issues, and have observed him with his friends, and all seems well there!).