After Easter we were lucky enough to be granted funding for a pre school place for our youngest small so we dutifully requested some morning sessions (deciding that afternoons would not be a good idea as we figured she would be too tired) and prepared with a new school bag, lunch bag and we did our best to prepare her for her new adventure.
The first week went ok - she was very unsure but the screaming did not start until week 2 when she refused to go into the classroom and screamed blue murder when I tried to leave, she also tried to chase me out of the door which left me with nothing but guilt. Why was I distressing my little girl in this way? Was it really doing her any good? What was she going to learn?
I had to be reassured by another mum that her behaviour was normal for any child and her fear was that I wasn't coming back for her. When I did collect her she was all smiles, she had calmed down within 5 minutes of me leaving and had been playing happily and had eaten all her lunch as well. The morning drop offs started getting easier and I was feeling a lot better about her being in an environment where she could play with other children in a safe and stimulating environment. All that changed with the 'incident'.
I hate to call it that but I have no idea what else to call it. I collected her one lunch time and found her screaming. "She has been bitten" the key worker told me. I immediately looked to her hands and was horrified when I saw that the bite was on her face, next to her eye and that it had drawn blood. All I wanted to do was get her out of there, I was devastated that I had left her there and she had been hurt. Pre school was supposed to be a safe environment. It took me getting her home and plenty of cuddles before I could calm her down and then I called the pre school to discuss it, apologies for the rudeness of my taking her out and to request the incident forms that I knew the social worker would need.
It turns out that no one had seen what happened although my oldest small said he did but we were told that this was the second incident for the biter and that he would be shadowed closely moving forwards to prevent a recurrence. I had very firm words with the deputy head and made it clear that another incident would mean me pushing for the child's removal from school as well as me considering the removal of my children to a different setting. I also had to stress that my children have already had huge upheavals in their lives and incidents like this are major setbacks in their developing of trusting relationships with the people around them. The staff had seen this when she refused to let them console her, or put anything near her face and they had been surprised by her refusal.
I have to say that I accept that accidents happen. Oldest small is a mass of bruises on his legs from playing, falling and banging into things. I also accept that some children bite. It is their way of communicating especially when they don't have the language to say what they want. What I don't accept is the severity of the bite and its location.
My next challenge was to persuade her to go back to school, that she was safe there and the tantrums got worse again. Luckily they have improved but it has taken a while for her to regain her trust of the pre school and during this time my feelings of guilt returned along with a acceptance that she had to return or I was teaching her that she didn't have to go back to a place when something unpleasant happened - not something that we could accept when we move to big school. I am hoping that time will make it easier for her and as it gets easier for her I will feel less guilty for leaving her.
I am going to stick my neck out, as I used to read this regularly but have gradually stopped.
ReplyDeleteDo you really think it's a good idea to put a 2 year old whose 3-4 months into placement into pre-school? Even a 3 year old I was surprised at. Given how much turmoil and confusion is going on in there little lives, and for the benefit of their future attachment, I really feel that at this stage it's not a good idea to put a child into pre-school.
Although Social Workers will give you some spiel about attachment transferring from foster carers to adopters, it's absolute rubbish. Most children's mental health professionals who work with attachment will tell you that what will happen at best is trust and the start of a bond will form. It takes many months for a child to attach in ideal circumstances.
It seems like perhaps the desire to do everything you can with your knew family, which is wholly understandable when you've wanted it for so long, has led to you throwing all of you into "normal" family life.
It's your family and you know them best but most of your posts speak of problems. I really feel that the best thing for your children, certainly the youngest, would be to be at home with you right now, attaching to you, learning to feel secure with you. There's so much time in the future for them to do nursery, school etc.
I hope things work out for you, I really do, but I just feel like perhaps things could be much easier for you, and certainly your children, if they had more time with you.
All the best,
Ilyssa.
I know exactly what you are saying and we said a lot of it to our social workers when they suggested pre school for them but the oldest needed it - he needed the stimualtion, the socialisation with other children and adults and he needed his 'space' for want of a better word. His behaviour improved remarkably once he had started and he settled so very quickly we knew that we had made the right choice to follow the social worker's advice. The youngest does love going - the social workers knew our fears and concerns when they suggested it and the whole situation is being closely monitored. If for a moment I thought they was any negative impact it would not be happening. The good thing is that,2 weeks later, she goes into pre school happily, no tears and enjoys playing with all the toys and the other children and is all smiles when I collect her.
ReplyDeleteSadly, our harsh reality is that I have to return to work and when that happens both children will have increased hours in pre school so we are starting a very slow and gradual build up of hours to prepare for that eventuality.
I also think, your most important point for me, is that a lot of my posts have focused on the negative which are a very small part of our lives. Our positives far outweigh the negatives and I know we are really lucky in that regard. I do need to focus more on how well they have settled, how well they have attached to us and how lucky we have been that they have done this with their specific backgrounds.