I’m explaining to them how difficult it’s going to be, what I think the hurdles will be and how we might overcome them. It will be a little wearing for you, I tell them, but if you can give her the time to build up a secure bond with you then she’ll adjust and she’ll even be quite independent by the end of it. She’ll be one of your easiest children, I promise them. It is just the rather long initial stage that will be difficult for you; she’ll be clingy, she won’t be able to handle group activities, she’ll panic if you’re out of sight. They nod slowly but I can see their eyes dart off to the side, this is one over-anxious mother we have here, they think.
And so it goes. Among other ideas I suggest that it might help if Lauca can bring in a favourite doll or soft toy to cuddle when she’s particularly upset. They tell me that they don’t permit that here, and as they patiently but firmly explain their reasons I want to interrupt them and say I know, I know, I’ve heard this before, you don’t want the other children getting ideas about bringing toys in too, or fights breaking out over toys, or having to deal with more lost property. Instead I just nod. By day two they’re asking me to bring in a special toy for Lauca, anything that might calm her when she gets that distressed. You haven’t caved in completely, I want to reassure them, the last place even let her take her doll with her on fire evacuations. Even though I’m sure the last thing they’re supposed to be doing is worrying about some kid’s doll during a fire drill. Such is Lauca’s resolve.
By the end of the second week they’re pulling me aside to ask me if it was this bad at the last place and do I want to continue or do I want to pull her out. We’ve been through much worse to get to where we are now, I tell them, and my mother, after she does one of the drop-offs and talks about the anguish she’s witnessed. Like a phobia, she says. I know, I know, I try to tell them all. I’ve been doing this for more than two years. I told you it was bad. I told you I was completely miserable about it. I told you.
blue milk 
[…] closest I will get to a Mother of the Year Award While deliberating with my partner about our Kindergarten troubles with Lauca I received this email from him at […]
I clung to my mother’s legs every morning for at least the first term of school. I sobbed. I insisted that it was completely unreasonable for her to leave me there.
But I got over it. I even learned to enjoy it a bit sometimes, and eventually I finished school with good marks and went to university. I think we all need to hear “This too shall pass” on a regular basis. I certainly do when I drop the kid off at childcare. Even though I hear him stop crying the second I leave the room and see him having fun (before he sees me) when I return.
Well, shit. I can only imagine how hard this is. It will get better in time, it will, it will, it will (I am willing it so)
I wonder what her recollection of all of this will be when she is older; if she does remember it, it will likely be far less distressing than your memories. Hang in there, Mama.
That sounds really hard. I feel for you. I only once had something that hard with my older one – to the point where I took him home again. This too shall pass is my favourite parenting mantra – I hope it works for you.
[…] cruel siren call Not that my Kindergarten concerns are quite the same as those described here by the mother of One Good Thing, but is there some […]
I am currently trying to convince my nearly 3yr old that using the toilet is not, in fact, the most terrifying thing on the face of the planet. I am failing, if the absolutely hysterical screaming when I made him sit on a (perfectly clean) public toilet seat are anything to go by.
At least I have the advantage that I know he simply must get over this phobia, and that it can’t really be that deep seated. I really feel for you, this is not nearly so cut and dried for you. My practical background says you are SO doing the right thing by keeping on pushing the point now, rather than leaving her to deal with this when she is older, but shit, I’m thinking this doesn’t stop it from tearing you up. On the plus side, she’s got a loving and united mum and dad, everything else is probably just noise in the long run. Good luck, you’ll get there.
Ack. I’m there with my daughter at present too, only the setting is Steiner/Waldorf. All strength to you – I find it helps to wonder how I’ll feel about this when I’m eighty. A nice haze tends to descend, along with vast nostalgia…before the strangle-hold on my leg brings me back to the present.
As an alternative, I’m reading up on home/un-schooling. Tempting.
[…] about kindergarten Kindergarten, which has absorbed disproportionately large segments of my thoughts has finally found some peace. Last week Lauca managed to complete her first full day at […]
[…] Not expecting Montessori kindergarten to have been such a successful gamble. When I rashly pulled Lauca out of one day a week of daycare because she really wasn’t coping …, I thought I was being a bit mad. But she has settled in and now she is enjoying it, a lot. And […]
[…] us that she wouldn’t be there this week. She is very sweet. Lauca loves this kindergarten and has settled in very well, but the memories of some of her worst times at daycare aren’…, and frankly they’re not far behind us either. Her distress has had her father and […]
[…] (You. Have. Come. So. Far). […]