My 4 year old DS started reception a couple of weeks ago, he has started his third week today. His first day he was fine, he went in, had a little play, and sat down nicely. Since then he clings to me, screaming and crying, every single day. He literally has to be peeled from me. He's quite strong, I struggle with him at times because of it, the teachers that try and hold him back so I can leave struggle to actually hold him.
I have to force him to get dressed in the morning a lot of the time, partially because when we got his school jumper, it had literlaly no stretch in the neck, and I couldn't get it on him. The shop gave us a different one, but it's still a bit tight and it makes him extremely anxious. I have to carry him all the way to school. In his first week, he at least walked home, but he wont even do that now. It's only a 10 minute walk, but he is a very big built, heavy boy. I struggle to carry him a lot of the time. His attitude at home stinks at the moment, he is being so stubborn and is not listening to a word I say, or his dads (yesterday he spent the day with his cousin, and he listened to her fine, so at least he still listens to somebody!).
Last week we had a "meeting" with the teachers about how he was settling in, and what we can do to help him settle. While he does stop crying and is generally happy there, he is very stubborn and defiant, i.e. not doing his work when he's asked to, he will only use one word answers, and instead of playing with other children, he'll sit and play along side them. However, he is going to the toilet ok and eating his lunch, though one of the TAs mentioned he has to be prompted a bit to eat as he gets distracted.
When he started nursery at age 3, he only had a couple of words in his vocab, he had delayed speech, saw speech therapists and things. It took him a couple of weeks to settle in there, but he eventually did, and the thrived. By the time he left he was discharged from speech therapy and had caught up to where he needed to be, though reception want to bring the speech therapy back into the fray, which I'm fine with. He had made a few friends and was really happy, always keen to go.
After the first week of reception he asked me when his friends are going to arrive. I asked what he meant, he said he was waiting for his friends from nursery to arrive at school. When I explained to him that his friends from nursery had gone to different schools, he burst into tears and said "my friends have left me". Which was utterly heartbreaking. I comforted and consoled him, explained things to him and he seemed to understand. Except now he seems to think he'll be going back to nursery soon. He wont listen to me when I say that's not going to happen, and even if he did his friends wouldn't be there.
I am trying my best to stay positive with him, especially in the mornings when it's time to get dressed, keep things happy and cheery, but after the 30th time of him ignoring me I start to get a bit cross. By the time I've dropped him at school and I'm out of the school gates again, I'm in tears (not in front of him), I don't know what I can do to help, I feel so useless and powerless. I'm getting quite stressed about it, it's making me anxious. I think in part I'm stressed and anxious because I've had a change in medication, but I'm losing sleep and losing weight (the latter isn't such a bad thing, as I could do to lose some weight, but I'd rather it was controlled). I do my best to make sure the stress and anxiety doesn't show, but I can't keep it all contained. My DP (his dad) sometimes starts a work shift later in the day and could do the school run now and then, but I really don't think it would help matters.
Can somebody just tell me it'll all be ok? It will get better wont it?