First day of school advice

Well, not really school per se. Our 20-month-old starts going to Mother's Day Out at a local church tomorrow morning. Since the wife went back to work, we've juggled schedules to manage to keep her at home in the morning and with a family member in the afternoon.

So do you have any tips for the drop? Quick as possible, even if she is bawling?

 

At 20 months? If they let you, stick around until there's a comfort level. It can't hurt.

 

Introduce them to another person or child in the room. Once they start playing, that is the time to walk out. If you hear crying, don't look back.

Does your child understand what you say? I would tell them these people are going to watch you while daddy and mommy work.

 

Stay for a brief time so she doesn't panic that she's been abandoned, you will have a hard time getting her to go back if she associates the place with terror. Try to make her first visit a short one, let her get a sense of the place, find some stuff she wants to play with, pick her up before she realizes she's not at home.

If she seems upset when you're ready to leave, give her something of yours to hold onto for you. One of my kids had some separation anxiety at preschool--I gave him some old house keys and told him to hold them for me until we could go home together. He still remembers that.

Now that kid is a college freshman, and could use those keys again. Anyone have advice for homesick college kids?

 

The first time in my life that I wasn't homesick was when I went to college. For me, what always helped when I was homesick was just being able to call my parents and talk to them. For me, the sympathetic ear is what helped. Of course, these were the days before texting, email and Skype. I bet being able to see my parents through something like Skype would have been helpful.

 

Just back from dropping her off. On the ride over, she was her usual talkative self. When we got there, she saw some of the other kids who were upset, so she stuck out her bottom lip and clung to my leg. We went into the classroom, met the teachers and she still wasn't happy. Then she spotted some Little People dollhouses, walked over, tapped one on the roof and said "house!" and smiled. She sat down and started playing, so the wife and I snuck out.

 

Nice.

I'm sure she will love it there.

 

Great. My wife always told me to tell my boys that "we'll be back" to let them know we were not abandoning them. Not sure if it worked but almost always it was a good drop off. She was not a fan of the sneaking out.

 

Sounds good, Inky. Some parents can't leave, and it's a problem.

Most of the kids will cry when the parents are there fretting about them. But the kids will settle down quickly after they leave.

I helped with kids in Sunday School -- 3-4 year-olds. One mom would try several times but couldn't bring herself to leave her kind-of-clingy son. He would have been fine.

One day she finally did and he seemed to be doing well, but she popped in 10 minutes later and took him out.

The problem there was the mom, not the kid. I felt sorry for him.

 

Crying among toddlers is contagious.

My son was adopted at 15 months, so he had some special issues about abandonment (for months, I couldn't walk into a building and hand him to a new person without letting him walk first), so when we started putting him in the nursery at church, taking him to Grandma's, et al, I stayed with him nearly the entire hour (or stayed in sight) so he knew it was safe. After that, we ALWAYS make sure we tell him we'll be back when the service (or whatever event we're going to) is over.

 

First thing she needs to do is find the biggest, baddest one there, walk over and ... Oh, wait, that's the first day in prison. Got confused.

Seriously, congrats on the milestone for all three of you. I'm sure everything from here on in will go just as smoothly.

 

If you leave the kid at a hospital, fire station or police station, you can't be prosecuted for abandonment.