Starting School

Blog post written by Dr Catherine Pitfield, Clinical Psychologist (Roots Psychology) working in Brighton and Hove.

Starting school is a big transition, for both your child and you as a parent. Any transition can bring new challenges and worries, and also present new opportunities.

 Brain development for ages 4 – 5:

As children are starting school, their brains are also going through a big period of development. They are moving from a position of egocentrism to sociocentrism; this means that they are starting to develop a theory of mind. Theory of mind is the ability to understand that others have thoughts and feelings of their own and these can be different to theirs. They start to understand social rules more and understand how they can be viewed socially be others.

You may notice that your child starts to become embarrassed around other children when something doesn’t go as planned or seem more concerned by how they are viewed by others.

Reflecting as parents:

It can be really useful to spend some time thinking about what your child starting school means for you. It can be useful to think about how you have managed previous changes and transitions (your child starting nursery, moving to a new house / job etc.). Spending some time thinking about what helped you with those transitions and what might be useful to put in place for this one? i.e would it be useful to have a few days of annual leave, do you want to meet a friend for a coffee (or cry) once you have dropped them off.

Your child starting school may mean that you have more or less time now for yourself, or your work. It may make family arrangements easier / harder. It can be useful to think about what it is you need for yourself to make this transition easier; thinking about where and with whom you can do your talking about any worries or challenges that you have.

It can be useful to remember that your child will be looking at you as to how you are feeling and coping with this new transition and taking cues from you about what this means for them. Much like when we are in a new situation, we take our cues from those around us to see how others are feeling. If your child is feeling particularly anxious or worried about starting school then it might be useful to visualise an air stewardess – if you hit any turbulence on a flight you want to see others being calm and this helps us to feel reassured.

Preparing your child:

It can be useful to prepare your child for what is coming up. You may wish to think about the changes they need to navigate such as:

·       New routes to school – you could do some trial runs with them to increase familiarity around one part of their “new day”

·       New routine – it can be useful to put this new routine in place at the end of the summer holidays so as their body clock has time to adjust to a new wake up and eating time

·       Goodbyes and Endings with nursery

·       School uniform – practice getting dressed and putting on own shoes

Talking with your child:

You may wish to reflect on where your child usually feels most comfortable talking with you and pre-empt having conversations in these places / times. For instance, if your child has any worries or questions do they tend to share these with you in the car / the bath / at bedtime etc. Talking can feel very intense for children so you may want to ease the intensity by talking whilst out on a walk or whilst colouring something in or doing a jigsaw.

Whilst talking with them you may want to name any emotions you think they might be feeling or normalise any worries they may have, such as “It’s really exciting that your starting school, some children feel worried about this new change though, it’s ok if you feel worried about it we can talk about it together”, or “I wonder if you are feeling worried about leaving nursery and starting somewhere new?”

At drop-off:

Drop-off can be a hard time for both children and parents. Children don’t have the sophisticated language that we do as adults, so it is not uncommon to hear “I don’t want to go” or “I don’t want you to leave”. They may not mean this in a literal sense, but they don’t have the language for the complexity of emotions that they are feeling.

The emotions around starting school are just as complex for your child as they are for you, however, we have lots of words for our feelings so can explain the complexity of how we feel. When children can’t explain they will either use words as close to that experience as possible, or they will show you in their behaviour (i.e. “acting up” or pulling at clothes, leaning in close to you).

Giving your child a big hug at drop-off will activate oxytocin and opiods in the brain (the “feel good” chemicals). It can be useful to also validate any emotion they are feeling and provide reassurance for this, i.e. “You look worried to be starting school, that’s really understandable and lots of other children will feel worried too. But I know that your teacher is really kind and will have lots of fun things planned for you to do today. I will be thinking of you all day and I will come back soon and you can tell me all about your day”.

Some parents like to draw a heart on their wrist and a heart on their child’s wrist as a visual representation that you will always be connected. Let them know that they can touch the heart anytime they are missing you, and remember that you are connected and will always come back together again.

At pick-up:

Your child will be using a lot of energy throughout the day and their arousal will increase with the new things they are learning, seeing, hearing and doing. When arousal increases it makes us really alert and we are able to learn at our best. However, if arousal becomes too high we can become stressed, anxious and feel over-whelmed.

In the first few weeks of school, your child’s level of arousal will likely be high during the school day, this can mean by pick up time they are starting to feel stressed. It is not uncommon that a child is able to keep going throughout the day at school and then appear to “blow-out” at pick up. High levels of arousal disrupt our capacity to think so children will find it hard to use the strategies they normally do to manage their emotions or behaviour.

With it in mind that your child has likely had a lot to manage in the school day, it can be useful to think about how you spend the rest of the day. Some children will respond best to having some quiet time, others may prefer to “let off steam” and run around a bit. It can be useful to reflect on what your child often needs after big days (i.e. after a day at nursery, a birthday party).

Taking time to re-connect at the end of the school day is really important, this can be playing together, eating together, sitting together – however best you do this in your family.

It can be useful to hold off on the questions about their day until they have had some time to unwind and reconnect with you. Questions can increase arousal and feel over-whelming too soon after pick-up, think about how many questions your child can manage and when they feel most open to answering them.