Back to School and Separation Anxiety

Let me start by saying, I wish I had some magic cure for separation anxiety. While I have not figured the exact trick to make our school day goodbyes 100% tear-free, I feel like I am picking up some great tools along the way.

My love is three-and-a-half and embarking on her second year of preschool. Last year, she cried a lot {by a lot, I mean more than half of the school year}. Many of those days, her tears lasted less than 5 minutes…but my heart would still hurt and lead to the longest three hours of my day. I still go back and forth on whether I sent her too early, or maybe because we had just welcomed the birth of her baby brother the timing was wrong. Who knows…This year, we are on our third week…the first week was absolutely blissful! She was happy and excited to go to school, and I was relieved! The second week was awful, the crying is back and her fear of me not being there when she needs me has taken hold. I am hoping this round of anxiety is going to be much shorter thanks to two great books that tackle her fears.

These books that she asks for when she is starting to get anxious are: A Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn and No Matter What, by Debi Gliori. Through beautiful illustration and words, they help acknowledge her fears and hopefully {very soon} conquer them.