The first days of preschool
Preschool, Day 1
Me (trying to establish good habits of talking about school to kids): How was school?
Babe: It was good
Me: (feeling like a textbook perfect mother) I am glad you liked it today. You don’t have to say it’s good, it’s OK to say you didn’t like it.
Babe: I didn’t like it at all
Me: (forgetting the next response from the textbook mother) Why didn’t you like it?
Babe: The kids would not let me play with some of the toys
Me: Did you like the art you did?
Babe: No
Me: Did you have circle time, did you like that?
Babe: No
Me: (a little desperate) What did you have for snack?
Babe: It was a chocolate chip cookie
Me: Well, did you like that
Babe: Yes
Me: Well, you know, sometimes you begin liking just a small thing in school and your liking grows slowly from it. Sometimes you still keep disliking it. Let’s see how it goes next time.
Day 2
Me: How was school today?
Babe: I did not like anything but snack
Me: Did you play outside?
Babe: Yes
Me: Did you like that?
Babe: Yes. But other than that I did not like anything.
Me: Well, you know (same lecture as above) + if you tell me what you don’t like I can work with the teacher and try to make it better.
Babe: Everything. I did not like anything.
Day 3 – 8 Similar conversations….maybe I should have kept him home more.
Day 9
Me: How was school today?
Babe: I liked it. It was good.
Me: Really?
Babe: We talked about families. I played outside…(etc etc – all wonderful preschool stories)
Me: (trying to round off a wonderful discussion) How was snack?
Babe: The snack was banana. I did not like it
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Hey, I went through the same. Snacks are a great bribe!
slowly they wil get used to the school atmosphere,the snacks they give are all healthy ,,
9 days is pretty good! My boys took about a month to get used to their preschool. They would cry every morning. Maybe because they never went to a daycare and were not used to staying away from mommy/home. But now they love it and want to go school even on weekends.
Khushi
I loved your post. i really laughed aloud, with your effort of making the babe like the school. When my son started going to the play school, for two weeks I went with him, till he was comfortable with his new environment.
Thank you all for your comments. Anonymous and Sarmila, yes, the snacks are good some of them – the cheese and banana. Yasmin, you know, he seemed fine that day but who knows what will happen next
Indrani, thanks. I think maybe I will ‘visit’ him in school – the preschool allows that and see what happens.