Back Off!
Poor little Peeper was SO stressed out this evening about going back to school tomorrow.
She even flipped out about dance class (she LOVES dance class!) and the teacher had to bring her out to me after about 15 minutes.
Then, I thought I would never get her to sleep tonight.
We're going to back off a bit and pick her up at the beginning of lunch tomorrow, then maybe after lunch next week and the "full" (minus nap) time the following week.
Especially with everything else we've been going through this week, we see absolutely no need to push her on this.
I have packed her little lunchbox though (much more appropriately than last week!) and if it's ok with the teacher (and Peeper) she'll still eat with her class tomorrow, but with Mama there.
At one point last week, that was our plan, but we let ourselves be swayed by all the "She'll do great!" and "If you do that, she'll expect you to eat with her every week," comments from well-meaning friends.
And then we were totally fooled by how well she did at the drop-off that morning.
(I am not expecting that tomorrow. Shrike is working days this week, so I'll be on my own for it.)
If it were a situation in which she *had* to be there (if I were going to work, for example) it might be different, but the whole point of this is for her to have fun and for us to have some relaxing grown-up time, and if she's crying all morning, that ain't happening!
I've told her the plan about only staying til (or through) lunch tomorrow, and a little longer each week. She agreed that that sounded better, but still isn't really convinced.
I've not actually read The Kissing Hand
I also asked her to give me a hand kiss, in case miss her while she's gone.
Then, maybe this is a bit much, but I cut out a hand (mine) and put a heart on it and I'm about to laminate it and I will show it to her tomorrow and will give it a real kiss, too, and we'll put it in her backpack. I will ask her teacher to let her visit it or hold it if she needs to.
I hope that helps.
That all sounds like a plan. And hey, they are doing fairy tales tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that will get her through the day. Mrs. D. said she thinks there's a puppet show, too!
ReplyDeleteI'm just hoping that she doesn't decide to tell them about the Princess with the funny looking elbows, or the babies that came out of Rapunzel's utewus.
I bet it's going to go much better than last week. I love the kissing hand idea. One thing that sometimes helps is letting the child pack their lunch themselves (with your help, of course!) It lets them at least have some part in the preparation for going to school. Even at the grocery store, you can get them to put stuff in the cart that they would like for their lunch (within reason, of course.) I never did the kissing hand thing, but I used to put messages in my kids' lunches sometimes, and they loved it.
ReplyDeleteHow did it go?
ReplyDeleteThe drop-off was AWFUL! but they tell me that the rest of the morning was "much better than last week."
ReplyDeleteShe tells me that she "cried because I was missing you," and she was puddled up when I got there at the beginning of lunchtime, but I'm told that she was singing and dancing at the puppet show just a few minutes before.
Both weeks, she helped plan her lunch, over the course of several days.
Last week, she helped pack it, but I didn't it myself last night, since "Hey, let's be excited about school!" was really working this week.