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Navigating the Transition to Preschool - Back to School BONUS
54 Plays18 days ago
If you're navigating the transition to preschool with a little one, this is the episode to listen to! In it, I interview my daughter about why it was hard for her and what helped the most, and I share our process for making the preschool transition work. This episode will give you some ideas and approaches to try out and find what works for your kiddo.
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Transcript
Back-to-School Challenges for Parents
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone. Happy back to school season. If you have school age kids, I am sending you so much love in this season. I feel like there's just so much to coordinate and all the supplies to get and the outfits and making sure that you've got all the times and dates right for all of the back to school activities.
00:00:25
Speaker
And just, it's a lot. And then of course, all the emotions of the summer ending and your kids being another year older and another grade older. So I'm I just want to send love to all of you who are in that.
Interview: Daughter's Preschool Experience
00:00:41
Speaker
And today I just wanted to share this bonus episode that I recorded and shared two years ago. It includes an interview with my daughter who was four at the time and who was...
00:00:54
Speaker
in her second year of preschool and she was talking about how the first year of preschool the transition was really tough for her and she shared kind of what helped her and then I talked a little bit about my perspective on it so I wanted to share this in case you have a preschool age little one and you're having a tough time with the transition to school I feel you. We went through that as well. So I wanted to share this with you. She just started first grade. So when I re-listened to this episode, her sweet little voice was, it was just so lovely to hear. And I'm so glad that I have this episode and I've shared it with so many people who are going through it. So hope it helps you.
00:01:38
Speaker
Good luck surviving this season. And i hope you enjoy this episode.
Preschool Transition: Year One vs. Year Two
00:01:52
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast with me, Adela, and my mom.
00:02:02
Speaker
Hi, everyone, and welcome to this bonus episode of the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. It's back to school season, and my daughter started her second year of preschool, and the drop-off transition this year was drastically different from last year.
00:02:19
Speaker
And I just thought I'd share some of the things that we did to set her up for success in case your little one is also having a tough time with the transition, whether it be back to school or to daycare or anything else.
00:02:32
Speaker
But before I jump into that, I'd like to share a little mini interview i did with my daughter after her second day of school. Enjoy. Hi, everybody. I am here with the most amazing girl in the whole wide world.
00:02:49
Speaker
Can you introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Adela. And Adela, how old are you? Four and a half. Every time that I go to record a podcast episode, what do you say, Adela?
00:03:01
Speaker
Um, what about all recording together? That's right. Let's record together. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought today we could do that. Sound good to you? Yeah. Okay.
00:03:12
Speaker
So I thought we could talk about whenever we did drop off at preschool last year and when we're doing drop off at preschool this year because did you just start school?
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah. How many days have you been at school now? Um two days. That's right. And how did you feel whenever we dropped you off this year? I felt excited and scared.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah? What were you excited about? That I got to play for slip painting and baby dolls. Yeah. Anything else you were excited about? e That I got to see my teachers.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. And what were you scared about? I was scared because on my first day of school. Mm-hmm. Because... Mama.
00:04:01
Speaker
Mama. Yeah? I'm a little bit shy today,
Interview: Daughter's Drop-off Feelings
00:04:04
Speaker
so you can say some of the words. Mama, scared because I got to meet new classmates.
00:04:12
Speaker
You were scared about meeting new classmates? Yeah, because I didn't know their names. Oh, okay. Were you scared that you would forget their names? No, I was skilled because I got to meet them on the first time and I didn't know any of their names yet.
00:04:30
Speaker
I see. So let's talk about last year. Last year was your first year of preschool, right? Yeah. Yeah. And how did you feel last year whenever you went to school at the beginning of the year?
00:04:42
Speaker
a Well... Whenever I was being dropped off, I felt really sad because Mama was leaving because it was my first time being dropped off after Mommy and Me class.
00:04:58
Speaker
That's right, because we did Mommy and Me class but the year before that, huh? Yeah. And we went together. Yeah. Yeah. So when you felt sad, whenever I would drop you off, what helped?
00:05:11
Speaker
Because eventually it took a little bit of time, huh? But then you started to feel yeah okay about it. So what was the most helpful thing for you? Hugging kisses and talking on walkie-talkies and waving at the window.
00:05:23
Speaker
And then this year when we dropped you off on day two, remember you gave mama a kiss and a hug and you sat down and you started doing your activity. yeah And you said, bye mama.
00:05:36
Speaker
so yeah And you didn't feel as sad anymore. ah Was there anything that helped you remember that um maybe to feel less sad?
00:05:46
Speaker
Eh. Because I looked at the picture of mommy and me and dada and my mama. That's right. You had a picture in your backpack, huh, that you kept in your cubby.
00:05:57
Speaker
And it did anything else that you would think about help? I saw about being first mama and me. I saw about being first mama. Yeah, and you would think about, did you remember that we would come back, we always came back and picked you up? Yep.
00:06:13
Speaker
Did that help? Yeah. Yeah.
Collaboration with Teachers for Easier Transitions
00:06:15
Speaker
Were there any books that were helpful? Did any books me that we read help you feel better or more prepared? a The show Daniel Tiger.
00:06:25
Speaker
The show Daniel Tiger? Yeah, because on the show Daniel Tiger, his mama and dada, his mama and dada always said, grown-ups come back.
00:06:38
Speaker
Grown-ups come back. That's an important thing to remember, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Anything else? Um, Mama? Yeah? yeah You know what? What? Recording is very tiring.
00:06:49
Speaker
Recording is tiring. For me, but since you've done it a lot of times, you don't get tired really often because you know how to do it.
00:07:00
Speaker
But this is my fourth time, so I'm shy and nervous and tired. Okay. Well, do you want to be done then? Yeah. We can talk about the rest of it later.
00:07:12
Speaker
Okay. You did a great job. Yeah. Thanks for coming on my show. I love you. I love you.
00:07:23
Speaker
That was my amazing daughter, everyone. ah wanted to hear directly from her because it was her experience. And I think that Obviously,
Summer Preparation for School
00:07:34
Speaker
anything that I would share would be from my own experience or my interpretation of her experience.
00:07:39
Speaker
But obviously, since she got a little bit tired there, I'm going to keep going with what worked for us from my perspective. So last fall, Adela started preschool in August at three and a half, and she had a really, really tough time adjusting to drop-offs.
00:07:57
Speaker
She actually loved school and we talked about, you know, should we maybe wait and not go to school anymore? But she actually really, really wanted to go.
00:08:09
Speaker
So I knew that she wanted to be there. it was just the drop-off transition that was hard for her. She was used to spending a lot, a lot, a lot of time with me. But we're really fortunate that she attends a super collaborative program. So her teacher and I worked really closely together to help her through the transition. And we did a lot of trial and error.
00:08:34
Speaker
And so I'll say some of the strategies that I'm going to share here. might not work for you, might not work for your situation, might not be compatible with the school that you're with, but I'm just going to share our experience and what worked for us, and maybe you can try a few things that might work for you.
00:08:54
Speaker
And also, i wouldn't just like assume that some of these things are not possible. I assume that some of them weren't possible, but then when I talked to her teacher, she was very open to whatever she needed to be comfortable in that transition. So I would just ask.
00:09:11
Speaker
As Adela referenced in our interview, we did a parent-child program at her school the year prior for two-year-olds, which was really great. And i got to know the director because she was the teacher of the class and that was wonderful. And I got to know a lot of other parents.
00:09:27
Speaker
But the downside of it is that she associated going to school with me being there. And so it ended up being That aspect of it made it a little bit more tricky because I had to work a lot to help her understand that like parents don't go to school with
Drop-off Strategies to Foster Independence
00:09:46
Speaker
for preschool. So that took some time to kind of undo that expectation. But in the summertime, we spent a lot of time kind of getting ready for this.
00:09:57
Speaker
So a few things that we did the summer before school started One was that at her school, there's this outdoor play space that is open in the summer.
00:10:07
Speaker
So I took her about once a week or once every two weeks to play. So it was familiar and also so she had positive associations with where she was going to school.
00:10:21
Speaker
And then we would, ah we knew which classroom she was going to be in. So we would walk to her classroom door and I would explain drop off. And we would kind of like go through the motions just so she knew what to expect.
00:10:34
Speaker
She tends to do much better whenever she knows what to expect. I also bought all the books, all of the like children's off to school books. So like Daniel Tiger, Elmo, Little Blue Truck, Biscuit, basically...
00:10:50
Speaker
all of her favorite characters going to school. And we read, i kind of worked that into our book rotation. we always read about five books at night before bed.
00:11:02
Speaker
And so um i would just always make sure there was at least one about but about going to school. And then as she mentioned, we watched the Daniel Tiger Goes to School episode. And i can't remember all the shows, but all the shows,
00:11:17
Speaker
tend to have a going to school episode. So we watched a lot of that in the summertime too. And then when the time came, day one was great.
00:11:28
Speaker
She did wonderful and was fine with the drop-off transition. And then day two was not great. And after that was not. um And I know every parent's different, but I was not okay leaving her there crying because i just felt like I wanted to her to have a positive I want her to have a positive association with school.
00:11:49
Speaker
So I didn't feel like starting off her school experience with crying every day and being really upset was something that I wanted to do.
00:12:01
Speaker
So at her school, parents are required to walk the children into the classroom and help them wash their hands and kind of get them started on their first activity. So that's kind of built in.
00:12:11
Speaker
and For the
Understanding Individual Transition Paces
00:12:13
Speaker
first couple months, I would stay with her at the beginning of class until she was comfortable with me leaving, which would take anywhere from like 10 minutes and then sometimes up to an hour. And so it was great because I got to learn a lot. I got to see the classroom a little bit more and kind of learned all of her classmates' names whenever she was telling me stories.
00:12:35
Speaker
And I also learned a lot from her teachers who are obviously trained and educated in this. And so i got to pick up a lot of skills, but if I could do it all over again, i think that I would not have stayed that much for that long. I would have started working with the teacher sooner. it wasn't actually until the first parent teacher conference where we kind of Had a chance to talk about it Even though I was there every day, we were not talking about adult things.
00:13:07
Speaker
Outside of that, Adela and I talked a lot about about it every day. or you know she would She almost always brought it up. She was pretty upset most days when she would talk about it and say, like, I don't want you to drop me off.
00:13:22
Speaker
And I would say, do you not want to go to school? And she would say, no, I do want to go to school. I just don't want you to leave. And so that was challenging, but we talked through her feelings about it a lot. And I just tried to provide a lot of space and validation because it is, it's a big transition for kids.
00:13:36
Speaker
So here's what ended up working for her. I think a lot of it was also time and maturity and kind of Seeing the pattern of how it works to be dropped off and then also to be picked up every day.
00:13:52
Speaker
So one thing we did is lots and lots of hugs and kisses at drop off, as she talked about in our interview. That was really crucial to her. And then also just talking about when I would be back to pick her up and showing her like where the hands on the clock would be whenever it was time for me to pick her up.
00:14:11
Speaker
She also took a stuffed animal friend with her. She doesn't have an attachment to one specific one. She kind of rotates who her attachment is. So it was often a different one that she would take.
00:14:24
Speaker
each day, but she always had stuffed animal friend. And there was a little girl in her class who was always so interested in who she brought that day. And so it was kind of nice to have an immediate conversation with another classmate whenever we got there.
00:14:41
Speaker
She also took a photo of us with her. I taped it to her water bottle so that she could see it anytime she wanted to. And every time she got a drink, There was another room in the building that I could go to. It's like a shared space. And so I often would take my laptop and work at the preschool.
00:15:02
Speaker
And so the teacher would take her outside on the playground where you could see the window where I would work. And so she would wave to me there.
00:15:12
Speaker
So it was like she would see that I was still in the building. and just wasn't in the classroom. So it was kind of like we had this progression of i would stay in the classroom and then I was in the building, but not in the classroom. And so she would go out and wave to me and then go back in and she would be fine with that. And over time that also evolved into her waving at the window and me being outside, like on my way out to the car, waving to her on days that I wasn't working there.
00:15:40
Speaker
And then in one of our many, many conversations, about this. She shared that what she really didn't like was that she couldn't reach me during school. So if she needed me, she had no way to contact me.
00:15:55
Speaker
And so together we came up with the idea of walkie talkies. And that was one that I wasn't sure that the teacher would go for, but she was totally on board. she was like, whatever is going to help her to feel comfortable in my classroom is what I want to do. so We got walkie talkies and i would stay in the other room and work and she could contact me on the walkie talkie. So when we first got them, she contacted me a few times at the beginning of class.
00:16:25
Speaker
And then it was like just a drop off. Like she would go to the um you know outside to wave to me and we would talk on there at that point. And then she really stopped using them altogether.
00:16:39
Speaker
she kind of would forget about it and just put it in her cubby and and not use it. so There was never a time that she like tried to contact me and i didn't an answer because she just got super engaged in school and kind of forgot about me and the walkie talkie once she got into it.
00:16:57
Speaker
But it was just like getting over that initial hurdle. So drop off would look like this for us. So we would walk into our classroom, do the hand washing, pick an activity. And then I would ask her how many hugs and kisses she wanted. And her answer was always 40, 20.
00:17:14
Speaker
So we would do a ton of hugs and kisses and I would count to 40 and then 20. um And then the teacher would take her hand and they would go outside and wave to me and then later at the window and wave to me.
00:17:29
Speaker
and it was funny when they would go outside, a lot of her classmates usually wanted to come too. So I had this like little send off party every day. And then we would wave and blow kisses and talk on the walkie-talkie if she wanted to.
00:17:41
Speaker
i think looking back, one of the most crucial components was really to validate her feelings, not try to rush her, and most importantly, to not compare her to her other classmates who had an easier time at drop-off because that really just would have piled on shame because I think she genuinely wanted to be comfortable with this, but she just wasn't. And that's just where she
Reflection on Growth and Trust in School Routines
00:18:05
Speaker
was. And so...
00:18:06
Speaker
I think just letting her know that that's okay and trusting that eventually it would be okay and she would get there, but not trying to push it. In the drive to school, i would also make sure that I would like...
00:18:21
Speaker
mentally prepare myself, take some breaths so that I could be patient and not get frustrated if she was going to have a tougher time that day. Because of course, I never really knew which days she was going be okay at drop-off and which days she wasn't. And so tried not to schedule anything right away at the right, right after drop-off. And then I would just make sure that I would like clear my head um and get in the headspace that like reminding myself of the parent that I wanted to be for her and how I wanted to show up for her.
00:18:53
Speaker
And I had to make that a very conscious effort and choice every time I did drop off. But I think the real game changer was working together collaboratively with her, with Adela, to come up with a solution and then working closely with the teacher to ensure we were on the same page. but Adele is the one who came up with the idea of the walkie talkies. And so when she owned the solution, i feel like she was more excited about it. She was more committed to it.
00:19:22
Speaker
And... I mean, that's true in human behavior and in anyone that you're supervising, right? Whenever somebody owns the solution, they're going to be more committed to it and they're going to believe it's going to work rather than someone else telling them what the solution is.
00:19:38
Speaker
So I think that that's the solution that we came up with together in our conversations. But if anyone's experiencing this, I think collaborating with the person who's actually going through it, um collaborating with the child to Come up with a solution together that they're going to feel comfortable with.
00:19:58
Speaker
And also, that wasn't like our first conversation. we had many, many conversations about it, and we didn't come up with a solution right away. It took time. and also not saying that we didn't have any tough drop-offs after we found that solution, but it just got significantly better after that and just continued to get better.
00:20:18
Speaker
So now fast forward to this year. She's four and a half now. And she's in year two of preschool. And like we talked about in our conversation, this year is like drastically different.
00:20:31
Speaker
So, so different. Drop-off is super easy. She still takes her stuffed animal friend and she still keeps a family photo in her backpack. and we take the walkie-talkies every day. She used them the first day and then maybe one or two other times since then. But it's very rare that she actually needs them. I think it's more about her just like having it um makes her feel a little bit more secure and comfortable.
00:20:56
Speaker
She's also just a year older and has a year of drop-off transitions under her belt, knows how school works, knows that parents come back and everything like that. So i think that like sometimes just time, it just takes time and it just takes repetition and it just takes kind of like that age and maturity for when they're ready. so she She referenced the Daniel Tiger saying that grownups come back.
00:21:22
Speaker
And that's something that I reminded her of like every day a drop off. And we still say it anytime she's feeling a little bit nervous about being dropped off somewhere that grownups come back. And I think since she has seen that over and over again now, she feels like she can believe it and trust it.
00:21:41
Speaker
But I think also it's just so important for us as parents to remember that this is temporary. This will pass. Every phase of childhood is finite, even when it feels like forever. And I think we usually want things to pass faster than they do, um but they just take the amount of time that they take and then it does pass. And then suddenly on day two, she's
Closing Thoughts and Encouragement
00:22:04
Speaker
giving you a quick kiss and saying goodbye and getting herself into her activities and you're walking out to your car in a daze and it's just like so bittersweet, right?
00:22:15
Speaker
hu Parenthood. But I hope some of these ideas will help you in your little one if the drop-off process is currently a challenge or maybe to help prepare you for an upcoming transition.
00:22:28
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me for this bonus episode today and best wishes in this back-to-school time. Have a great day, everyone.
00:22:40
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. Please like, subscribe, or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time.
00:22:51
Speaker
care.