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In this special back to school bonus episode, Leanna and her young daughter talk about the challenges of the transition to preschool and what helped to make the drop off process a lot smoother. Knowing there are children and caretakers out there struggling with this too, we hope this episode is helpful to share both solidarity and ideas to help make the transition easier for everyone.
Connect with Leanna here.
Full transcript available here.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Welcome to the podcast with me, Adela, and my mom.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Hi, everyone, and welcome to this bonus episode of the executive coach for moms podcast. It's back to school season, and my daughter started her second year of preschool. And the drop off transition this year was drastically different from last year. And I just thought I'd share some of the things that we did to set her up for success in case your little one is also having a tough time with the transition, whether it be back to school or to daycare or anything else. But before I jump into that, I'd like to share a little mini interview I did with my daughter after her second day of school. Enjoy!
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Hi, everybody. I am here with the most amazing girl in the whole wide world. Can you introduce yourself?
Adela
Hi, I'm Adela.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
And Adela. How old are you?
Adela
Four and a half.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Every time that I go to record a podcast episode, what do you say, Adela?
Adela
What about our recording together?
Leanna Laskey McGrath
that's right. Let's record together.
Adela
Yeah.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. So I thought today we could do that. Sound good to you?
Adela
Yeah!
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Okay. So I thought we could talk about whenever we did drop off at preschool last year. And when we're doing drop off at preschool this year, because did you just start school?
Adela
Yeah.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
How many days have you been at school now?
Adela
Um, two days.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
That's right. And how did you feel whenever we dropped you off this year?
Adela
I feeled excited and scared.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. What were you excited about?
Adela
That I got to play with the painting and baby dolls.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. Anything else you were excited about?
Adela
That I got to see my teachers.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. And what were you scared about?
Adela
I was scared. Um, because my first day of school. Because Mama, I'm a little bit shy today, so you can say some of the words. Mama, I was scared because I got to meet new classmates.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
You were scared about meeting new classmates?
Adela
Yeah, because I didn't know their names.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Oh, okay. Were you scared that you would forget their names?
Adela
No, I was scared because I got to meet them on the first time. And I didn't know any of their names yet.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
I see. So let's talk about last year. Last year was your first year of preschool. Right?
Adela
Yeah,
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. And how did you feel last year whenever you went to school at the beginning of the year?
Adela
Well, whenever I was being dropped off, I felt really sad because mama was leaving because it was my first time being dropped off after mommy and me class.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
That's right. Because we did. Mommy and Me class the year before that, huh? And we went together.
Adela
Yeah.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. So when you felt sad, whenever I would drop you off? What helped? Because eventually it took a little bit of time, huh? But then you started to feel okay about it. So what was the most helpful thing for you?
Adela
Hugs and kisses and talking on the walkie talkies and waving at the window.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
And then this year when we dropped you off, on day two, remember you gave mama a kiss and a hug and you sat down and you started doing your activity, and you said bye, Mama. Yeah, and you didn't feel as sad anymore?
Adela
No.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Was there anything that helped you remember that maybe to feel less sad?
Adela
Because I looked at the picture of mommy and me and Dada in them.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
That's right. You had a picture in your backpack that you kept in your cubby, and did anything else that you would think about help?
Adela
I thought about being with mama and me. I thought about being with mama.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. And you would think about did you remember that we will come back. We always came back and picked you up?
Adela
Yep.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Did that help?
Adela
Yeah.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah. Were there any books that were helpful? Did aTiny books that we read help you feel better or more prepared?
Adela
The show Daniel Tiger.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
The show Daniel Tiger?
Adela
Yeah. Because on the show Daniel Tiago, his mama and dada his mama and dada always said, grown ups come back.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Grownups come back. That's an important thing to remember. Huh?
Adela
Yeah.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Yeah, anything else?
Adela
Mama, know what?
Adela
What?
Adela
Recording is very tiring.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Recording is tiring yeah.
Adela
For me, but since you've done a lot of times, you don't get tired very often because you know how to do it. But this is my first time, so I'm shy and nervus and tired.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Okay. Well do you want to be done then?
Adela
Yeah. We can talk about the rest of it later.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Okay. You did a great job.
Adela
Yeah.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Thanks for coming on my show. I love you.
Adela
I love you.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
That was my amazing daughter, everyone. I wanted to hear directly from her because it was her experience. And I think that, obviously, anything that I would share would be from my own experience or my interpretation of her experience. But obviously, since she got a little bit tired there, I'm going to keep going with what worked for us from my perspective.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
So last fall, Adela started preschool in August at three and a half. And she had a really, really tough time adjusting to the drop offs. She actually loved school. And we talked about, you know, should we maybe wait and not go to school anymore, but she actually really, really wanted to go. So I knew that she wanted to be there, it was just the drop off transition that was hard for her. She was used to spending a lot, a lot, a lot of time with me.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
But we're really fortunate that she attends a super collaborative program. So her teacher and I worked really closely together to help her through the transition. And we did a lot of trial and error. And so I'll say some of the strategies that I'm going to share here might not work for you might not work for your situation might not be compatible with the school that you're with. But I'm just going to share our experience and what worked for us. And maybe you can try a few things that might work for you. And also, I wouldn't just like assume that some of these things are not possible, I assume that some of them were impossible. But then when I talked to her teacher, she was very open to whatever she needed to be comfortable in that transition. So I would just ask.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
As Adela referenced in our interview, we did a parent child program at her school the year prior for two year olds, which was really great. And I got to know the director because she was the teacher of the class. And that was wonderful. And I got to know a lot of other parents. But the downside of it is that she associated going to school with me being there. And so it ended up being that aspect of it made it a little bit more tricky, because I had to work a lot to help her understand that like parents don't go to school with for preschool. So that took some time to kind of undo that expectation.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
But in the summer time, we spent a lot of time kind of getting ready for this. So a few things that we did, the summer before school started. One was that at her school, there's this outdoor play space that is open in the summer. So I took her about once a week or once every two weeks to play. So it was familiar and also she had positive associations with where she was going to school. And then we would we knew which classroom she was going to be in. So we would walk to her classroom door and I would explain drop off and we would kind of like go through the motions just so she knew what to expect. She tends to do much better whenever she knows what to expect.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
I also bought all the books of the like children's off to school books. So like Daniel Tiger Elmo, little blue truck biscuit, basically, all of her favorite characters going to school. And we read I kind of worked that into our book rotation we always read about five books at night before bed. And so I was just always make sure there was at least one about about going to school. And then as she mentioned, we watched the Daniel Tiger goes to school episode, and I can't remember all the shows but all the shows tend to have a going to school episode. So we watched a lot of that in the summertime too.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
And then when the time came day one was great. She did wonderful and was fine with the drop off transition and then day two was not great. And after that was not and I know every parent's different but I was not okay leaving her there crying because I just felt like I wanted to her to have a positive, I want her to have a positive association with school. So I didn't feel like starting off her school experience with crying every day and being really upset was something that I wanted to do.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
So at her school parents are required to walk the children into the classroom and help them wash their hands and kind of get them started on their first activity. So that's kind of built in. And for the first couple of months, I would stay with her at the beginning of class until she was comfortable with me leaving, which would take anywhere from like 10 minutes, and then sometimes up to an hour. And so it was great, because I got to learned a lot, I got to see the classroom a little bit more and kind of learned all of her classmates names. So whenever she was telling me stories, and I also learned a lot from her teachers who are obviously trained and educated in this, and so I got to pick up a lot of skills. But if I could do it all over again, I think that I would not have stayed that much for that long. I would have started working with the teacher sooner. It wasn't actually until the first parent teacher conference where we kind of had a chance to talk about it, even though I was there every day. We were not talking about adult things.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Outside of that, Adela and I talked a lot about about it every day or, you know, she would she almost always brought it up, she was pretty upset most days when she would talk about it and say like, I don't want you to drop me off. And I would say do you not want to go to school, and she would say no, I do want to go to school, I just don't, you know, leave. And so that was challenging, but we talked through her feelings about it a lot. And I just tried to provide a lot of space and validation. Because it is it's a big transition for kids.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
So here's what ended up working for her. I think a lot of it was also time and maturity and kind of seeing the pattern of how it works to be dropped off and then also to be picked up every day. So one thing we did is lots and lots of hugs and kisses at drop off, as she talked about in our interview that was really crucial to her. And then also just talking about when we'd be back to pick her up and showing her like were the hands on the clock would be whenever it was time for me to pick her up.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
She also took a stuffed animal friend with her, she doesn't have an attachment to one specific one, she kind of rotates who are her attachment is so it was often a different one that she would take each day. But she always had a stuffed animal friend. And there was a little girl in her class who was always so interested in who she brought that day. And so it was kind of nice to have an immediate conversation with another classmate whenever we got there.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
She also took a photo of us with her, I taped it to her water bottle so that she could see it anytime she wanted to. And every time she got a drink.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
There was another room in the building that I could go to it's like a shared space. And so I often would take my laptop and work at the preschool. And so the teacher would take her outside on the playground where you could see the window where I would work. And so she would wave to me there. So it was like she would see that I was still in the building. I just wasn't in the classroom. So it was kind of like we have this progression of I would stay in the classroom. And then I was in the building but not in the classroom. And so she would go out and wave to me, and then go back in and she would be fine with that. And over time that also evolved into her waving at the window and me being outside like on my way out to the car waving to her on days that I wasn't working there.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
And then in one of our many, many conversations about this, she shared that what she really didn't like was that she couldn't reach me during school. So she needed me. She had no way to contact me. And so together we came up with the idea of walkie talkies. And that was one that I wasn't sure that the teacher would go for but she was totally on board. She was like whatever is going to help her to feel comfortable in my classroom is what I want to do. So we got walkie talkies, and I would stay in the other room and work and she could contact me on the walkie talkie. So when we first got them, she contacted me a few times at the beginning of class. And then it was like just a drop off like she would go to the you know outside to wave to me. And we would talk on there at that point. And then she really stopped using them altogether. She kind of would forget about it and just put it in her cubbie and not use it. So there was never a time that she, like tried to contact me. And I didn't answer because she just got super engaged in school and kind of forgot about me and the walkie talkie when she got into it. But it was just like getting over that initial hurdle.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
So drop off would look like this for us. So we would walk into her classroom, do the handwashing picking activity, and then I would ask her how many hugs and kisses she wanted. And her answer was always 40 20. So we would do a ton of hugs and kisses and I would count to 40 and then 20. And then the teacher would take her hand and they would go outside and wave to me and then later at the window and wave to me. And it was funny when they would go outside, a lot of her classmates usually wanted to come to so I had this like little send off party every day. And then we would wave and blow kisses and talk on the walkie talkie if she wanted to.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
I think looking back, one of the most crucial components was really to validate her feelings, not try to rush her and most importantly, to not compare her to her other classmates who had an easier time at drop off, because that really just would have piled on shame, because I think she genuinely wanted to be comfortable with this, but she just wasn't. And that's just where she was. And so I think just letting her know that that's okay. And trusting that eventually it would be okay. And she would get there, but not trying to push it.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
On the drive to school, I would also make sure that I would like mentally prepare myself, take some breaths so that I could be patient and not get frustrated if she was going to have a tougher time that day because of course, I never really knew which days, she was gonna be okay, a drop off in which she she wasn't. And so I try not to schedule anything right away at the right after drop off. And then I would just make sure that I would like clear my head and get in the headspace that like reminding myself of the parent that I want it to be for her, and how I wanted to show up for her. And I had to make that a very conscious effort and choice every time I did drop off.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
But I think the real game changer was working together collaboratively with her with Adela to come up with a solution and then working closely with the teacher to ensure we were on the same page but Adela is the one who came up with the idea of the walkie talkies. And so when she owned the solution, I feel like she was more excited about it, she was more committed to it. And I mean, that's true in human behavior. And in any one that you're supervising, right, whenever somebody owns the solution, they're going to be more committed to it. And they're going to believe it's going to work rather than someone else telling them what the solution is. So I think that that's the solution that we came up with together in our conversations. But if anyone's experiencing this, I think collaborating with the person who's actually going through it, collaborating with the child to come up with a solution together that they're going to feel comfortable with. And also, that wasn't like our first conversation. We had many, many conversations about it. And we didn't come up with a solution right away, it took time. And also not saying that we didn't have any tough drop offs after we found that solution. But it just got significantly better after that, and just continued to get better.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
So now fast forward to this year. She's four and a half now. And she's in year two of preschool. And like we talked about in our conversation this year is like drastically different. So different. Drop Off is super easy. She still takes her stuffed animal friend, and she still keeps a family photo in her backpack. And we take the walkie talkies everyday. She used them the first day, and then maybe one or two other times since then. But it's very rare that she actually needs them. I think it's more about her just like having it makes her feel a little bit more secure and comfortable. She's also just a year older, and has a year of drop off transitions under her belt, knows how school works, knows that parents come back and everything like that.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
So I think that like sometimes just time, it just takes time and it just takes repetition. And it just takes kind of like that age and maturity for when they're ready. So she she referenced the dino Tiger saying that grown ups come back. And that's something that I reminded her of like every day I drop off and we still say it anytime she's feeling a little bit nervous about being dropped off somewhere. That grandma's come back and I think since she has seen that over and over again. Now she feels like she can believe it and trust it. But I think also it's just so important. And for us as parents to remember that this is temporary, this will pass every phase of childhood is finite, even when it feels like forever. And I think we usually want things to pass faster than they do. But they just take the amount of time that they take and then it does pass. And then suddenly on day two, she's given you a quick kiss and saying goodbye and getting herself into her activities. And you're walking out to your car in a daze. And it's just like so bittersweet, right? Ah, parenthood.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
But I hope some of these ideas will help you in your little one if the drop off processes currently a challenge or maybe to help prepare you for an upcoming transition. Thank you so much for joining me for this bonus episode today. And best wishes in this back to school time. Have a great day everyone.
Leanna Laskey McGrath
Thanks so much for tuning in to the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like, subscribe or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
