Day 11 - Triple A stages of first days in school

Today's post is more for parents and actually more for those parents whose children have just started school or are going to start school. Single people may not enjoy this post.

My younger kid - a son - just turned two and has started going to his play school for about 2 months now. While my elder is in 2nd standard, I remember these stages applied to her as well. As the child starts the first days of school, there are three stages that the child goes through. In some form or the other these three stages apply to all kids starting school. And this applies for the first days of school i.e the first time your kid starts school when he/she is very young. You'll typically put her in a play school when she turns 2 or in a nursery / Montessori school when he turns 3. Well, get ready for these stages.

AWE: The first stage that the child will pass through is Awe. Your child will run into the school for the first few days of school. He is too awestruck with all the different things to play with, explore and have fun with to bother about the fact that he is alone or with many other kids or with some new people. This stage usually lasts for 2-3 days and at a max for about 7 days. Within that time frame your child has finished exploring all the different things in school and now suddenly wakes up to the fact that he is being left alone in a strange place. She then gets into second stage

ANGUISH: This is the crying stage, the tantrum stage and the clinging-to-you-at-the-gate stage. Your child will howl and cry as she reaches the school and start telling you that she does not want to go to school. He will cling on to you for dear life with tears streaming down his face when you get to the gate. Imaginative kids will tell their parents that someone hits them in school or that another kid pushes them in school. Some will complain of stomach ache when they get to the school. Other kids start saying that they want to do potty. All these because they know that as a parent you will want to rush back home and give them medicine or get them to their potty. Kids will push the envelope with their parents and try and find different ways to avoid going to school. They will stop having their breakfast. But the key weapon in their arsenal are the tears when they get to school meant to melt your heart.

This is the longest stage for the child and the parent. It can last from a few days to weeks and even to one full month. Parents feel sad and start to assess if it is so important to send their child to a 'school' at such a young age. Maybe we should let him be at home. He was so happy at that time. Some parents feel embarrassed that their child is crying so much at the gate of the school. Some parents start wondering what is happening in school that my child is so afraid to go there. They start wondering if their child is being taken care of properly.

At the end of this stage, children graduate into the third and last stage of going-to-school and that is

ACCEPTANCE: In this stage the child just learns to accept that irrespective of what I do, my parents are going to leave me at this place so might as well learn to enjoy it. When the child gets to this stage they go in quietly into the school and to the teachers. Some kids in fact turn around, wave a bye, blow a flying kiss to the parent and walk in. This is the stage that the parents wait for. When they breathe a sigh of relief and are happy that their child has 'adjusted' to the school. It is from this stage onwards that the child starts to learn a lot and his vocabulary starts to change. New words come into his vocabulary. New concepts are formed. New rhymes are sung for the parents and new names are mentioned. And everyone is happy.

But the fact to be aware of is that the child oscillates between the 'Anguish' and 'Acceptance' stage for a few months. The parents think that their child has 'settled' in school and suddenly for a week in the middle the child will revert back to crying and the 'Anguish' stage.

This can happen for multiple reasons - maybe on of the parent traveled on work and the child starts to think that when I go to school my mother disappears and comes back later or the child got hurt in school an he starts associating the school with that hurt and pain or someone pushed him or did not give him a toy when he asked for it. There could be multiple reasons. The key is to know that your child will always go back to the 'Acceptance' stage and that this is just a phase.

So new parents always be prepared to face the three A's when your child starts school.

Tomorrow I'll talk about what to do in each stage.