Helping My Child Overcome Anxiety About Starting School

Starting school can be an especially anxious time for both a child and parent, whether it's starting preschool for just a few hours each week or going to a primary school for five days a week, the transition involves a physical separation of the parent and child and all the emotions that go with it. For us. the transition has been particularly painful.  For the three years of my son's life, he and I have been practically inseparable.  (We lived in Singapore without any close family nearby to babysit and with our impending move, we decided not to enrol him in a preschool there).  Almost everything we experienced in those three years, we experienced together.  Suddenly, I was bundling him up in jacket and backpack, walking him down the road to a building where I kissed him goodbye and left him in the hands of complete strangers.

In reality, the separation wasn't quite that dramatic.  Initially I sat in on the sessions until I felt he was adequately settled.

It was then that the backlash began ...

My (usually) non-aggressive child was kicking and hitting his brother, he would sit on the stairs before preschool refusing to go, he would try to dodge the teacher to follow me out of the building, any mention of the word "preschool" would involve tears or a torrent of hate-speech: "I want to hit preschool", "I want to huff and puff and blow the preschool down!!" (I suspect they read him the story about "The Three Little Pigs" there) or more recently "I want to throw the preschool into the toilet and flush it away!" Whilst the preschool assured me that beyond the initial upset of saying goodbye, he was peacefully engaged in all the activities there, I started to feel the whole experience was damaging our relationship, that the unquestionable trust that a child has in his parent to listen to him, to take his feelings seriously and to make him feel safe was being eroded.  I was on the brink of pulling him out...

Books
Before abandoning school entirely, I decided to do some work on helping my son talk about his feelings. I started by ordering some books about feelings and separation and then followed up this reading with some play therapy and created a "Peace Corner" in the children's bedroom.

Two books that have helped us immensely are:  The Way I Feel and The Kissing Hand.

The Way I Feel by Janan Cain is a book that illustrates children displaying an array of different feelings: silly, scared, disappointed, happy, sad, angry, thankful, frustrated, shy, bored, excited, jealous and proud. The pictures are accompanied by a rhyming text that helps to describe the emotion in more detail: for example the emotion "Frustrated" depicts a girl trying to tie her shoelaces with the accompanying text: "I'm frustrated because I can't do it.  It's hard and I want to cry.  I don't know whether to give it up or to give it another try."  My children love the illustrations in this book, which not only show realistic images of children displaying emotions, but also reflect that emotion in the surrounding illustrations on the page.  The boy who is sad and sitting in a tree is surrounded by drooping leaves of blue and green that invite the reader into his world of sadness.  (The illustrations are so effective that my 23 month old, Dooey, looks at it and starts to talk in a sad voice too, before taking the book in his hands and kissing the page to make the boy feel better).

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn is a heart-warming book about a raccoon called Chester who feels anxious about starting school until his mother shares with him the secret about "the kissing hand". His mother unfolds the fingers of Chester's hand and kisses the palm, telling him that if he feels lonely and misses her, he should lift his hand to his cheek and instantly he will be filled with his mother's love and warm thoughts.  The story has a beautiful ending where Chester looks towards his school and then unfolds his mother's hand and kisses it before running off.  The book wonderfully acknowledges that the separation is painful for both the parent and the child. This story had a profound effect on my son who was about to enter the preschool gates a couple of weeks ago, when he lifted his hand to his cheek and smiled at me.

Somehow spending each evening with Wugs on my lap for 10-15 minutes, reading him these books, helping him to identify circumstances that cause him to feel angry, sad, frustrated or jealous and then talking through how to handle those emotions has resolved the aggressive behaviour and made him more vocal in describing his feelings rather than simply acting on them.  "Preschool" is still a bad word in our house and with last week being the beginning of a new term after the Easter break, I was concerned his anxiety would re-emerge.

Play Therapy

I have used play therapy with Wugs before to help him overcome feelings of loss when some family members flew back to Malaysia after a brief visit (Play Therapy for Families Living Apart).  I decided to do this again by building a copy of Wugs' preschool using Duplo bricks and adding stickers to the bricks for important details such as his coat peg and his name label.  Then I talked him through a typical drop-off at preschool, with us walking to the school, seeing his teacher at the door, finding his peg and name, putting his fruit in the basket, sitting with friends in the reading corner. We even built the toilets as another milestone for him has been trusting a teacher to help him use the toilet.  Familiarity and routine play a huge part in making Wugs feel secure and in control of his day. An unexpected outcome of this form of play was the way in which Wugs extended it.  He seemed especially interested in what Dooey and I would be doing whilst he was at preschool (so we built a separate scene that included our house, with me preparing the tea in the kitchen and Dooey having a nap).  He spoke about activities he did at preschool, the names of children and teachers that he interacted with and what looked like actions to songs he had learned there (things that he does not readily talk about when I collect him at the end of the session).

Other Ideas/Suggestions to Help Settle a Child at School (from a non-professional)

Sit in on a Couple of Sessions - At least initially I would recommend attending some of the sessions, even if the child isn't visibly distressed about you leaving.  This gives the parent a feel for what the child will be experiencing during his day, the types of children he will be playing with, the way the teachers handle specific issues as well as the general impact of the preschool schedule on the child.  I found it beneficial to observe the children, especially those that were initially distressed when their parents said "goodbye" and eventually settled into an activity.  Other children happily kissed their parent goodbye and then got upset at some point during the afternoon.  In Wugs' preschool the teachers handled that by getting the child to draw a picture for the parent they were missing.  This sort of observation helped me to trust the teachers that would look after Wugs and that feeling of trust (I believe) was sensed by Wugs which enabled him to trust them too.

A Keepsake - Just as The Kissing Hand is about carrying a mother's kiss wherever the child goes, the preschool teachers have recommended giving the child a keepsake of some sort to carry around with him at school.  (Something inexpensive in case it gets lost - a small paper heart, for instance).  The child may pull out the keepsake and feel a sense of proximity to the parent through it.  One of my favourite tips was to rub a little perfume on your child's clothing so that he can feel close to you through a familiar scent.  

Telling the Child What You Are Doing Whilst He/She is at Preschool - This suggestion came from an experienced preschool teacher who said that children often feel that when the parent leaves, he/she has disappeared for good.  It helps the child settle if he knows you are doing a particular activity whilst he is at preschool that has a beginning and an end (going to the shops, preparing the dinner, posting a letter etc).  I tried this a couple of times, but for me the challenge was finding something that Wugs wouldn't want to do as well.  He loves working alongside me, going to the supermarket etc.

Accepting All Emotions -  I've often heard people say "Don't cry" and then "Well done for not crying" to Wugs in a heart-warming way and with the best of intentions, but telling a child to bottle up their emotions is not only counteractive (because it is through expressing them and talking about them that the physical behaviour is resolved), but threatens the relationship of unconditional love that a child believes he has with his parent.  Even though I've often wanted Wugs not to cry in order to make my job of leaving him easier, it is unfair to expect him to control his emotions in order to save mine.  He is looking to me for emotional stability, to be able to accept his emotions and reassure him.

Using Neutral Language - I started referring to preschool as "big school" where Wugs goes because he is a "big boy", playing on the fact that Wugs often feels proud to be the older brother (whereas Dooey is still little and stays at home with mum).  What I didn't appreciate was that Wugs was feeling two conflicting emotions - one was a sense of responsibility for his brother, (he was worried about where Dooey was and what he was doing when Wugs was at preschool) and the other was a feeling of wanting to draw back (I suspect he was experiencing preschool as some kind of punishment for growing up) and  was regressing fast (lying across my chest with his milk in his hand wanting to be like a baby).  Again, I found it helpful to accept the way he was feeling and let him work through it in his own time.

Making Time Before and After the Preschool Session - Wugs attends afternoon preschool sessions, so I keep the morning activities light so that he is not too tired when he goes (some of his initial unhappiness in attending preschool I believe was due to tiredness - usually he would nap in the afternoon).  Although I have sometimes struggled to do this, I found it helpful to prepare the evening meal whilst he was at preschool so that I was available to him when he came out, rather than scurrying off into the kitchen to cook dinner as soon as he was home.  

I'm pleased to say that after completing his first day in his new term last week, no tears were shed and Wugs was actually excited to go - something that was unimaginable even a month ago.

A Peace Corner - To Encourage Children to Talk About Feelings

Negative feelings are a difficult thing to manage with young children, especially with those who are unable to verbalise or rationalise them yet.  Over recent months we've witnessed heightened emotions spread like fire through the house, leaving us all exhausted and frazzled by the end of the day.  Our family has been through a period of change these last few months - an international move, residing at a number of addresses before choosing our temporary home, introducing my eldest son to preschool, getting used to the cold weather, layers of clothing, stairs, people who speak English with a different accent and family members who visit on a regular basis.  It has been a turbulent time for the children and has given rise to some negative emotions and inappropriate behaviour.

I wanted to encourage the children to recognise their emotions, talk about them (before acting on them) and recognise those feelings in others.  I decided to create a "Peace Corner" - (ambitious, I know!) an area in the children's bedroom that a child can retreat to when he needs to calm down or restore some inner equilibrium.

What we used:

A Sheepskin Rug - I wanted to create a place of comfort and warmth so the "Peace Corner" was built around a sheepskin rug

A Hideaway - it is sometimes difficult to be alone when you have another sibling with whom you share a room, so I created a hideaway using saree cloth

A Mirror - to identify facial expressions associated with certain emotions

A Mood Light - to create a cosy atmosphere

Blank Faces - for the children to draw out their feelings

Calm Down Jars - a visual sensory item to encourage balance (I followed the first recipe from this website).

Stress Ball

Chewing Toys - my 23 month old uses chewing as a way to calm himself (we purchased these toys from here).

Lavender-scented Toy - this cuddly toy can be warmed up in the microwave and gives off a lavender scent.  He comes out when a child is upset to offer warm hugs.

Calm Down Cards - a collection of cards that inspire, comfort and remind us of God's love

Family Photos - a reminder of happy memories with the family

Music - my children enjoy classical and Eastern music which I play on the iPad and then sit the iPad on top of the wardrobe so that they can hear the music without getting distracted by the device.


Creating an environment that encourages calm and reflection is just a part of helping children manage overwhelming emotions.  It recognises the need for a change of scene, sometimes separation from others and an environment that positively acknowledges feelings.  In addition to our Peace Corner we went through some exercises which helped the children label their feelings, which I will post about in due course.

Garden of Eden Small World

Over the last few weeks I have been reading the story of creation to the children before they go to bed.  We have a few children’s bibles so I have been alternating between different presentations of the story each week.  My three year old has become particularly inquisitive about anything to do with the bible and God, so I wanted to take the opportunity to bring this bible story to life for him.   I thought it would be fun to set up a mini Garden of Eden – one which the children plant and look after, just as Adam and Eve did in the very beginning.  

My original idea for the garden involved setting aside a plot of land in the big garden with a little picket fence around it for the children to work on and play in, but we are renting at the moment and I didn’t want to invest so much into a garden that we may only enjoy for a few more months. (Also I don’t have a great track history of keeping plants alive!), so we went for a moderate window box Garden of Eden.

We started this project by choosing our plants.  This involved a bit of research into which plants are safe in case a child ate one of them (which, in the case of my 22 month old is very likely!) I decided to go for a herb (rosemary) and other edible plants (dianthus and viola), letting the boys choose the colour.

I set up the table with a tray for the children to spoon the soil into the flower box and then we dug out three spaces to put the plants into.  I showed Wugs how to handle the plant when we took out of the pot and re-planted it, which led to a discussion about roots.  Once our plants were in their new home, Wugs watered it and I added in a few characters to link our flower box to our nighttime story.

Our Adam and Eve figurines were made from wooden pegs, which I decorated with markers and then used a varnish to protect them from the moisture.  The decision not to cover their bodies was a deliberate one, as was the omission of the snake and the angel with the flashing sword.  I didn’t want our Garden of Eden to be reduced to a story about the Fall, but to reflect the innocence and freedom that humans once had.  Plus the fact that Wugs would never have made the association between our figurines and the creation story unless he could see “Adam’s willy” (something he checked immediately before placing him in the garden)! 

The signpost was made from painted craft sticks and a label which was also varnished.

The garden spends most of its time outside the conservatory where the children can view it when they are playing indoors or they are free to play with it when they are outside.  I keep a container of different animal figurines which they can use in their play.  Every few days I ask Wugs to check the soil to see if it is dry and he waters it appropriately and we have watched the dianthus in particular come into bloom.

What we used:

Flower Box for the plants

Potting Mix

Tray to contain the potting mix (optional, but easier than using a bag)

Digging tools

Plants

Wooden pegs

Craft sticks

Markers

Labels

Mother's Day Cards

It's Mother's Day this Sunday in the UK and it seems that every toddler, preschool and church group is full of activities that children can do to show their appreciation for their mothers.  I thought I would share a couple of simple ideas that I picked up along the way before sharing our own Mother's Day Card which Wugs and Dooey will give to my mother this weekend.

The Gift Card
The teapot card was made by Wugs at preschool this week.  It appears to have been made from pre-cut shapes (of decorative paper) that he had to stick together to create the teapot shape.  The little message and the attached teabag inside the card is a nice effect.  An inexpensive card that could be put together quickly using pages from magazines or wrapping paper.

The "MUM" Banner Card
This adorable banner card was decorated by my 22 month old Dooey.  I discovered this idea at a toddler craft lunch.  The card was cut from (what looks like) a folder (it is longer than A4).  This occupied Dooey for ages,  He decorated it with felt-tip pens, stickers and Do-A-Dot stampers.

The Flower Card

This card was of our own inspiration after a walk around some gardens last week with my mum. The card is made from tissue paper and paint.  I've written a detailed post about how we made it here.

Flower Cards

We made these flower cards for Mother's Day, but as they are for my mum, they could equally be used for Grandparent's Day (or any other occasion really).  Grandparent's Day is on 13th September this year (2015).

Last week we took a walk to some beautiful gardens and had the pleasure of seeing some flowers that had come into bloom - camellias, daffodils and a whole bank full of purple crocuses.   That trip provided the inspiration for our flower cards.

What we used:
Coloured card
Green paint
A small box (small enough for the child to get his fingers around)
String
Coloured tissue paper
Glue sticks

We started this activity by making the grass.  I wrapped string tightly around an old cream cheese box and asked the children to dab the bottom of the box into the green paint (until each section of string was covered with the paint).  Then I asked them to press the box against the card creating this grass effect. Our first attempt at this was better as I provided Wugs with just a small amount of paint.  Our second attempt with Dooey was a little smudged as the paint was too watery.

Once the paint had dried, we made our flowers by tearing up pieces of tissue paper and then screwing up the individual pieces into balls to make flowers.  Dooey does this naturally with all kinds of paper, so I knew he would enjoy this part!  Then I handed them each a glue stick and they stuck the tissue paper balls to the cards to create flowers.

These flower cards could also be made from pages of a children's magazine or any paper that is thin enough to screw up into a small ball.

Explore a Culture Through Its Traditional Ways of Living: Inside a Malaysian Village

Every culture has its own unique ways of living that are informed by climate, events of the past, stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, natural resources, education, political and religious influences. This month I am inviting the children to go back in time and explore life in a traditional Malaysian Village or "Kampung" (as it's called in Malay). The kampung lifestyle is often referred to nostalgically as a place of freedom, simplicity and proximity to nature, a place where relational ties are strong between family and friends.  With modernisation and the technological boom in recent decades, the kampungs have largely been deserted and the younger generations have migrated to the cities or modern housing estates. I put together these activities in the hope that the children will develop an appreciation for their Malaysian heritage and (having a grandmother who grew up in a kampung) learn a bit of family history along the way.

My main resource for exploring the traditional Malaysian kampung life has not been a textbook or a series of websites, but a couple of books by the renowned Malay cartoonist, Mohammed Nor Khalid (commonly known as "Lat"). The Kampung Boy, is a humorous recollection of his early childhood experience of living in a kampung: bathing and fishing in the river, being circumcised on a log(!), learning about the life of trees and plants from his father, receiving instruction on the reading of the Koran and attending a traditional Malay wedding.

The activities below are aimed at preschool aged children, but could be adapted for an older child and/or a different culture:

Kampung Small World

Our small world is an introduction to the setting of traditional village life.  At the centre is the classic wooden kampung house with a sloped roof (to drain off the rain) and set on stilts (to protect its inhabitants from predators).  I made the kampung house out of a bird box, craft sticks and various wooden shapes that can be purchased from a craft store.  (Once I've furnished its interior I will share in detail how I made it).  The peg dolls are clothed in tops and sarongs, with the women wearing their hair back in a bun (as was the custom).  I combined this activity with a language game where I taught Wugs the Malay words for the different objects he pointed out.

Making Batik
Batik is a traditional textile craft of Malaysia that goes back to (at least) the 17th Century according to the Malay Annals.  Batik involves creating patterns (usually flower or leaf motifs or geometic designs) on cloth from hot wax. The cloth is then washed in a dye and the wax is scraped off to reveal an intricate pattern.  My sister-in-law purchased these batik-making kits from Malaysia which have the wax design already on the cloth and a dye palette for the children to brush the colours on to the design.  Batik designs can also be created using glue and acrylic paint.  Check out these colourful designs from All Our Days.

Batik Matching Cards
When we were living in Singapore, I bought a variety of cheap batik material from a Malay market.  I decided to create batik patterned cards from it.  I placed the cards randomly on the table for the children to match them up according to colour and design.  Given how intricate the patterns are, this proved a bit challenging for my three year old.

A Kampung Meal
In Kampung Boy, Yesterday and Today, cartoonist Lat describes a typical kampung meal of boiled tapioca with grated coconut and sugar.  I decided we would dine kampung-style this evening and the sweet, creamy mix was met with approval from my boys.

Counting Sugarcanes 
One of Malaysia's natural resources is sugarcane.  Sugarcane is a stout grass stalk which can grow up to 6 metres high.  It is harvested for its sucrose, but can also be consumed in drinks (sugar cane juice) or (as Lat recollects) the sugarcane stick was chewed.  I created a simple counting activity using green painted cake sticks (for sugarcane) and a congkak board (congkak is a traditional childhood game in Malaysia, but a little too advanced for Wugs so we used it as a simple counting board).

Fishing in the Kampung
One of Lat's first skills as a young boy was learning how to fish in the local river.  Wugs had a taster of longkang (meaning "drain fishing") at a kampong in Singapore.  After heavy rainfall the drains would often be overflowing with fish and children would bring empty jam jars or tins to scoop up the fish.  For this activity, I printed off images of fish that would typically be found in a local Malaysian river, laminated them and put them in a tub of water between stones and plants for Wugs and Dooey to catch using tea strainers.  The children then needed to match the fish they caught with the images of fish on a reference sheet (with the name of the fish written underneath it).

Kampung Sensory Bin
The sensory bin was made up of things that are naturally produced in Malaysia (often in the kampungs).  Our bin contained rice, dried banana, sugar cubes, tin and rubber (gloves).  I added in some tongs for the children to use to pick up medium-sized objects and help strengthen those fine motor skills.

Rice Weighing
For this activity I borrowed a set of old weighing scales from my mum and instead of using the small metal weights (which are too heavy for the children), I measured out separate quantities of rice into bags.  On one side of the scales sit the bags (1 cup, 3/4 cup, 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup of rice) and on the other side, the children can add the loose rice into a bowl and experiment with weight and balance.

Traditional Childhood Games
Lat devotes a large part of his book , Kampung Boy, Yesterday and Today to the childhood games that were played in a kampung.  My husband also remembers playing these at school with his friends. In our basket is
- a shuttlecock-like object that is made of rubber and (traditionally) the feathers of a local bird.  It is tossed in the air and tapped or kicked.  The idea is for the object not to fall on the ground.
- a spinning top (traditionally made from guava bark with a nail pushed through it).  The string is wrapped around the top and then pulled away quickly.  Competitions were held over the distance covered by the spinning top, the speed of it etc.
- the ornate-looking catapult was traditionally made from guava bark and an elastic band.  This has proved to be a very popular toy in our house!
- the triangular bean bags are used in a game called batu seremban that involves throwing the bags on the ground and picking one up at a time, tossing it in the air and picking up another before the bag that is thrown in the air falls to the ground.

Whilst living in Singapore, I discovered a shop at One North MRT station (next to the Malaysian restaurant, "Penang Place") that sells the objects that are used in these traditional Malaysian games. Some of them can also be purchased at Kampong Glam (Muscat Street).

Name Road Mats for Car Enthusiasts

Over the last couple of weeks, Wugs and Dooey have been enjoying these name road mats. Wugs has been doing some name recognition activities at his preschool, so I thought that combining his interest in cars with the letters of his name would be a fun way for him to remember it.

(My apologies for not displaying the mats in full on the blog - I like to keep the names of my sons private.  Hopefully the idea can still be shared through the photos I have taken).

What we used:
Two sheets of A2 white paper
Coloured black pencil
White sticker labels (white markers on the road)
Light and dark green foam paper (fields)
Black foam paper (concrete land)
White foam paper (railway tracks)
Black marker pen (railway tracks)
Blue perspex (lakes)
Contact paper
Wooden painted blocks (shops and trees)
Glue
Cars and trains

The mats were a bit of an experiment and whilst working on them, I wasn't sure if I wanted the landmarks to be permanent features or not and whether I would draw them on or cut out the shapes from different materials.  I'm not great at drawing, so I decided to make some of the features permanent (green areas, concrete areas, lakes and train tracks) and some of them changeable (the wooden block buildings, trees and sign posts).

I drew the letters on the paper and coloured them in black/grey and added the white labels as the road markings.  Then I covered each sheet with contact paper.  I built up the landmarks around the letters using a very strong glue to stick the features to the contact paper. (As each name has different letters, the boys had their own unique road mats with similar features - each had a lake, green space, a concreted area and a railway track running through it).

The making of the mats was not that easy for a few reasons (and hopefully by mentioning this, I can make the process smoother for anyone else who wishes to make one):  Firstly, I decided to colour the letters by using coloured pencil.  The contrast of black and white can be a bit garish, so I was going for a softer look.  Clearly it has been years since I have coloured using a coloured pencil as I hadn't anticipated that the black/grey from the pencil would smudge over the white parts of the mat and that the colouring process would take so long! In the end, I cut out the letters and stuck them to a new sheet of paper.  I would recommend drawing the letters on to paper that is already coloured grey/black.  Secondly, I had to cover the paper with contact paper (double-sided sticky tape) if the mats were going to survive at the hands of my toddler.  This led to a bit of a fight with the contact paper... but we got there in the end!  In my experience, there isn't a perfect way to cover paper using contact paper.  Hopefully it isn't necessary to use it (unless you have a child who eats everything of course...which I do!)