"I Hate Preschool"
Has separation anxiety threatened your child's enjoyment of preschool?


By Teresa Pitman


When Noah was three, he started preschool and loved it. But, according to his mom, Dorothy Beauchamp, a couple of weeks later, “right out of the blue,” Noah started clinging to her and saying he didn’t want to be left at school.


Beauchamp was puzzled by his reaction: “I knew he had been happy at first and hoped that he would be again. I really respected and admired the teacher, and she told me that it was common for children to fit in happily at the beginning and then go through a period of separation anxiety.”


Carolyn Hadcock, a consultant with the Toronto and District Parent Co- operative Preschool Corporation (PCPC), says kids will let parents know if they’re unhappy at school. “Some typical behaviours include crying, clinging to parents, becoming withdrawn at home and at preschool and refusing to engage in any activities. There may be some backward steps in development like toileting accidents or a return to thumb-sucking.”


Terri Carr, a consultant with PCPC, says parents should look for a change in behaviour. The key is being attuned to your child’s temperament. It took Miranda Hughes a few weeks to figure out that her 31¼2 -year-old daughter, Erin, didn’t like being at preschool. “She was pretty non-communicative about it,” says Hughes. “She’d nod and say, ‘It’s OK’ when we asked her about school. She didn’t cry or cling when dropped off, she’d just look a little worried.”


But as time went on, Hughes found it increasingly difficult to get Erin out of bed for school. “She didn’t want to go to bed in the evening, and even if she went to bed on time she’d wake up at two in the morning and have trouble getting back to sleep. Then she’d be so tired I could hardly get her up the next day.” On non-preschool days, though, she popped out of bed happy and energetic.


Hughes decided to dig a little deeper. “I started asking her more about preschool. She’d always told me that she liked circle time the best. I thought she meant that it was the most fun for her. But when I asked more about it, she said she liked it because that meant it was almost time to go home. That broke my heart.”


Her strategy: Tell Erin that attending preschool was optional, that she could go when she wanted to and stay home when she wanted to. Within a few weeks, Erin had stopped going altogether.


Although considered a last resort by some parents, pulling children out of preschool can be the right choice. “Sometimes the child is just not ready to separate,” Hadcock explains. “When the parents try later, the transition from home to school is accepted much more readily.” With preschoolers, even a few months can make a big difference.


For Rosanne Lyster’s twins, Margaret and Jeremy, getting comfortable with preschool took a few weeks. They were enrolled at age three in a program that also ran a get-together for mothers in the same building.


Margaret and Jeremy weren’t so impressed, though, and cried when Lyster wanted to leave. But she found that intensive preparation helped her children, especially Jeremy. “The day before, I’d talk to them in detail about what we would be doing — going through it step-by-step: ‘We’ll go in the car, we’ll drive to the building, Tim the teacher will say hello to us, we’ll hang up our coats,’ and then I’d go through the whole routine of the preschool day, ending up with, ‘and then Mommy will come back and get you.’”


In fact, for Jeremy, who is very visual, creating a picture storybook of the expected events was even more effective. That’s what Lyster did this year to prepare him for starting kindergarten.


“It helped that I was in the same building,” Lyster says of the twins’ preschool years. “I could tell them that if they needed me, they should just tell Tim and he would call me. I was also very ‘rah, rah’ about Tim, letting them know how much I liked and trusted him and that he would take good care of them.”


Noah’s teacher was also instrumental in helping him rediscover his groove at preschool. Together, Beauchamp and the teacher developed a strategy. “Initially, I just stayed in the classroom the whole time,” says Beauchamp. “I reassured him that I would be there, over in the corner, if he needed me. I would just sit and read and basically try to stay out of the way.” Gradually, she began to leave for short periods of time, which eventually lengthened until Noah could cheerfully wave goodbye to her and feel comfortable staying the whole time on his own.


Whether you decide to work with the teacher to try new approaches, change schools or keep your child at home instead, your response reassures your child that you love him and care about how he feels.


Helping Her Love Preschool

Look for a preschool that’s a good match in terms of basic child-rearing philosophy and your child’s personality and temperament. If it turns out it’s not a good fit, seek out an alternative.
If possible, have your child meet some of the other children in the program for visits at the park or for playdates, so she’ll feel she has some friends at school.
Ease your child into the preschool program — make several visits together before her enrolment starts.
Give your child a toy or photo of mom and dad to bring from home.
Tell the teacher about your child’s favourite games or activities, so she can use these to involve your child.
Be sure you return on time to pick your child up. If he’s feeling stressed, having you show up even a few minutes late can be very upsetting.


Originally published in Today's Parent, February 2003