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Anika seemed pretty excited on the way. She was talking about how Karen will come to the car & lead her to her classroom where she will get to work with the scissors. She was pretty cheerful:
Then we pulled up to the school. While we waited for the teacher to come by, she went from cheerful to scared, than back to calm. Here's her scared state:
As Karen came to get her, she started whimpering & crying a little "I want Mommy to get me out of the car!" But Karen was very nice and soothing and she got Anika out of the car, waved bye-bye and took her in. We heard a final plaintive "Mommy, Mommy" from her, but not too bad.
Both Virginija and I kept it together pretty well - we discussed that Anika must see us supporting her in her steps to independence. I think most of our crying spent itself in the past few days, so when the moment came, we were (kind of) ready.
We drove out, drove back in the back entrance, and sat in the car for 15 minutes just in case they would call us (they say it's only happened a couple times in many years that some kid is totally unconsolable), then drove to the local mall to hang out.
At 11, we pulled up, and I could see her sitting on the bench inside where they are to wait for the parents, and she looked content! and here's what we saw when Karen brought her out (sorry for the crappy shot);
Ani was happy & smiling, and just wouldn't stop talking about her day. Karen told us that "She had a good first day!" and Anika told her "See you tomorrow!"
We went to Baker's Square to celebrate. Ani had her favorite - Mac'N'Eez!
A good first day. (huge sigh of relief)
Thanks for all the well-wishes & commiserations, my friends. It means a lot to all three of us.
I'd never heard the "no parents in the building" rule before, but it makes some sense. Prying a crying kid off of your leg is no easy task. It breaks your
Originally Posted by Lainey8484,Aug 31 2005, 02:19 PM
Looks and sounds like it went very well.
I'd never heard the "no parents in the building" rule before, but it makes some sense. Prying a crying kid off of your leg is no easy task. It breaks your
Glad you all did OK.
Well, since it's a Montessori school where kids start before age 3, the separation anxiety issues are more pronounced than with the usual 5 year old kindergarteners. The other school that we looked at did it gradually - parents stick around for the whole day, and slowly wean themselves from their child (I deliberately phrased it that way! )
Montessori programs especially seem to have a strong focus on routine and structure, which is one of the aspects of Montessori that kids seem to thrive on, and that we really like. Having parents around is disruptive to learning those new routines.
If it wasn't so obvious to us that these people know what they're doing, and really care about every child that comes in their doors, we might be questioning this more. I'm curious now to see how tomorrow morning goes. Tomorrow and Friday are still short sessions (1.5 hours), but starting next Monday it will be a full 3 hours, 5 days a week.
There was no reason for us to worry - the second day was easy! Anika got all excited when she saw her teacher Karen coming to the car. She jumped right out, waved bye-bye and was off!
) 
