Please help me embrace dd starting school (PFB)

[shhhh]

I so want to make starting school as good a time as it should be for dd BUT deep down its killing me...

Don't think even dh knows how hard it is for me..Im a sahm so been dd's sole carer for the last 4 years. She started preschool last sept and goes 2 days a week and has settled in well and I have no issues that she won't do the same in school BUT I guess its hard as she is growingup.

She has had afternoons at the school, we are both due to have lunch there next week, have had parents evening and out of the class of 24 approx 12 are boys/girls who go to her preschool and one is her best friend...

She seems fine about it all BUT has been waking the last few nights crying and when prompted last night mentioned school.I hugged her telling all will be fine.

How can I make it easier for me..I feel sad that everything we are doing atm seems to be for the last times...finishing her baby music class,summer play in the garden,morning walks,all the innocence she has atm..

Saddens me...

Am I alone in my maddness..?

[shhhh]

BTW, I am not showing this sad side to her. I talk of school in a positive way, all the fun she will have. Excitement at buying bags and clothing etc.

[MangoJuggler]

awww

Can you enrol in a daytime course at college, volunteer in your community during the school day, all from September of course

you need to ratchet down YOUR anxiety to avoid projecting onto her, she needs you to be calm and quietly excited about this next step in her life to ease her transisition to school(if she gets the notion that Mummy thinks that school is a worry then she will pick that up)

We have all been there and it does get better

[hug]

[MangoJuggler]

ahh I see your second post, all good stuff

Seriously, you can see this as a bit of time to rediscover you, not as Mummy or wife but as an individual

An opportunity, yes?

[flamingobingo]

home educate her

it's great fun and a very efficient way of learning

[GuessWhatIAmANameChanger]

No you are not alone but you need to turn it around, chances are she is picking up on your sadness at the moment which won't help her! (I know you probably realise that already!)

Stop seeing it as "last time " and see it as "last time " it is a small distinction I know but basically you have to force yourself to start celebrating the fact that she is growing up and moving on to new experiences - mainly because it is a positive thing for her to do, this is how life is supposed to be. It is hard and, at first, it will feel very forced to you but it will get easier in time and you will buy into it more. Do things like "Ooh, today is your last baby music class, I wonder what you will be doing on [insert day/time here] when you start school - maybe you will be reading with your friends in the reading tent/[insert other thing she has shown interest in here], I can't wait to hear all about it"

I do know how you feel, my youngest (and last) child recently started school and the only way I got through it was like this - joining in with her joy and refusing to submit to my sorrow. It is another one of those parenting moments when you have to stomp your feelings down, plaster on a smile and keep a bottle of wine in the cupboard ready for the evenings after she is asleep.

[GuessWhatIAmANameChanger]

Ahh, Xpost on the second post there!

In that case, no you are not alone, I have been there each time I had a new starter, the most recent being the worst. Those moments when you are smiling and laughing about how much fun it will be to et lunch with your friends every day when, inside, you are wanting to yell "I want to eat lunch with you every day..." It is a painful right of passage as a parent - unless HE is an option for you of course

[shhhh]

Thanks everyone..Yeah, I do also see it as a time to get things done in peace and also to spend time with ds (time alone which he never really gets as 2nd born..).

Flamingo I suggested that to dh..not sure if it would be practical as ds around..?

I guess its the worry and fear that im handing over the reins to someone else.

I will take the advice on board though and do my best to keep positive.

[MangoJuggler]

bless you

[Highlander]

Jeez, I can't wait for DS1 to start school:

It's free

All my friends will be dropping off their sprogs

he needs the intellectual challenge

he can around outside a lot more than nursery

Ooh, and did I mention it's free?!

[shhhh]

but ALTHOUGH its free it comes with its expenses...Uniforms,trips,birthday/friends,the latest must haves, expensive holidays times..

[flamingobingo]

Why wouldn't HE be practical with DS around? I HE all mine with all their sisters around . You don't exactly have to do much in the early years - just keep on doing what you're doing now!

Honestly, all the research indicates that natural learning is very, very efficient, particularly in the early years.

Why not try it for a year? If your DD really doesn't want to go, and you don't have to send her, then why do it?

HE is very, very fun

[shhhh]

Really flamingo...
I thought there would be some cirriculum to follow and have visions of sitting down like in school and spending time of reading writing etc.

My days atm are spent going to music/ballet/swimming classes, playing in the garden,walks,shopping,colouring in,reading etc.. Not what I guess they do at school..?

[cory]

Even if you choose to home educate, you won't get away from what seems to be your basic problem, which is the fact that she is growing up and will be growing more independent of you. However much you HE, you won't find 4 yo innocence in a 10yo (and heaven forbid that you should!). If she is home educated you will still need to find other ways of teaching her to explore the world away from your protecting eye.

Basically, you need to teach yourself to view her growing up as fun and exciting. It is great fun having an older child, someone you can share your own interests with, but also somebody who has things to tell you at the end of the day, somebody who shows you new ways of looking at the world, someboyd who can teach you new interests.

I have a 12yo and it's great when she comes home at the end of the school day, or from a school trip, and we talk over her day. Am already dreading the day she goes off to uni- but I expect I will have done a bit more growing then, and cope with that too.

It's the old half full half empty thing. You need to think not about what you will be losing, but what you will be gaining.

And at this stage, it probably does help if you try to develop more interests of your own as well. If you have fun without her, it will be easier for her to have fun without you. And then you can both double the enjoyment by sharing it.

HE is a perfectly valid choice, but either way- both of you are going to be growing and changing; it's the natural way of life.

[shhhh]

cory,what a lovely post Thankyou.
You are explained what I didn't know about myself and have answered it in a nice way and not patronising.

Its hard I guess having your lo growing up, I have suffered with pnd since her birth and ds's and not because I felt them hard or a life change BUT because I felt this power and control over them. Like a lioness protecting her cubs .

I wanted to do everything for them and I have done for both ds and dd and im proid of myself but just a little sad that I now need to hand over to someone else...

She came out of big school yesterday following a taster afternoon...seemed happy BUT her preschool lady told me she had been upset in preschool and once dropped at school..crying for mummy and clinging to them . This makes me sad, feel as though its me who should be going through that but then I guess with someone else maybe it may get easier...

I will get better and see the brighter side of it, I have to. I guess we all want to hold onto things and even to out our lives on hold at times. xx