When our son started nursery, we had the following goals, in addition to him simply ‘starting nursery’:
That he start nursery in his own time, at a pace that didn’t overwhelm his ability to emotionally cope with all the newness it brought;
That he feel & express all his feelings about starting nursery, and have those feelings validated and supported gently;
That he learn in this process that when he feels big emotions he will be supported with them, and that when he turns to others with those big emotions, he will met with validation and empathy;
That he learn that he doesn’t have to stuff down his feelings inside of himself, and ‘pretend to be okay’, just because they make someone else uncomfortable;
That he can learn that he can struggle, and then equally be supported to slowly build tolerance & resilience, to truly overcome those struggles in his own way, and then find genuine joy in the process too (rather than denying that struggle - Smiling on the outside, while hiding his crying the inside).
For us, we saw this transition to starting nursery as an opportunity for our son - Not only to get access to all that a nursery setting has to offer him, but to also (if we handled this transition in a deliberate, mindful way) further his growing foundation of emotional intelligence, and emotional resilience - Which we have faith will then serve him well throughout his nursery years, his school career, and his whole life.
In my last blog post (https://www.mindbodysoulpsychology.co.uk/post/supporting-your-little-one-to-start-nursery-when-flexibility-in-an-apparently-inflexible-process) I talked about the importance of having flexibility in the process of starting nursery, in the achieving of the above goals. In this post, I talk about the BIG emotions of our children, and the importance of believing in those emotions, and supporting the expression of them, during this transition.
Sadly, this modern western society we live in, tends to minimise the emotional impact of big life changes, and starting nursery is no different - I’ve heard countless variants of the following statements about children starting nursery, and who are finding that hard: “Oh they’ll be fine, every kid goes through it don’t they?”, “Its no big deal, millions of kids do it every term”, “Just drop them off and run, they’ll be fine!” … Any of this sound familiar?
Now, lets think about the experience from your child’s point of view, when they start nursery (or any new context for that matter) … When they are realising they have to say goodbye to you in a room full of strangers; When they see you leaving, and nothing feels familiar to them - Not the room, not the teachers, not the other children; When they cry at the time of separation, or even as they get dressed for nursery, or leave your home; When they get upset at nursery, and you are not there to comfort them, and the teachers find it hard to replicate your soothing presence; When there are new routines and ‘ways of doing things’ at nursery that can feel alien and scary to them; When they have to learn to share, or line up, with other children and this just doesn’t make sense to them yet; When they therefore express anger before, during or after nursery; When, during this transition, they are at home and many tasks that they had previously mastered start unravelling again (e.g. bedtime; bath-time; dinner time; toilet time; etc.) with meltdowns and tantrums and tears - All of these challenges and emotional experiences, both at nursery, and at home during this time, are entirely NORMAL and HEALTHY.
Starting nursery often really does feel like a BIG DEAL for your little one, and I believe its important we believe our children when they tell us, through their emotions and their behaviours, that they are going through something that really is a big deal for them.
For a child who has a good attachment to their primary care giver, tears and upset at separation from that caregiver (and increased emotional expression at home too during this tumultuous time) is simply evidence of that solid attachment - We, as humans, have a biological need to be close to our primary carers. While we might trust that the nursery staff are more than capable of caring for our little ones, our little ones themselves are likely to have no concept of this idea of us ‘transferring their care to someone else’, even if it is for a few hours. They simply understand that THE person who cares for them, is leaving them, and they are not able to understand at first that it is only for a few hours - Their brain simply isn’t developed enough for us to rationalise with them about this concept of temporary time frames.
But our little ones can of course learn about this concept - They can learn over time that they can temporarily attach to other care givers, but they are very likely to experience strong feelings of fear and sadness until those new caregivers become familiar, and until those care givers have been consistent enough for long enough for repetitions of their presence to build trust. As a three-year-old, to express distrust & fear of a total stranger in the beginning of any relationship is very healthy. Tears and upset are normal at this time, and I believe they should be validated at such.
Yet, in my experience of supporting my own son with his starting at nursery I have heard countless parents and nursery staff say things like: “Oh don’t cry”, “There is no need to cry”, “Oh you were excited at home, don’t cry now”, “There is no need to be scared!”, “Nursery is for having fun, not for crying” … And my just heart breaks for those children every time I hear words like that spoken. I know those words most often come from the best of intentions, and yet - Our child’s emotions, like ours, are never wrong, they are never a mistake - They are always valid, they always make sense, and they should always be met with someone believing that they are the big deal that they feel like, and therefore should be met with loving support and validation, rather than correction or denial.
If a child is crying then they genuinely DO ‘need to cry’. If a child looks scared then they DO always have a valid reason to be feeling scared, even if it’s not obvious to us in that moment. I carried this principle close to my heart to support my son with his transition into nursery - I believed him when he told me (though his behaviours and tears) this was big deal, and I believed that all of his feelings about it were for a very good reason, even if I didn’t feel the same myself, or I couldn’t immediately see the logic in his emotional expressions.
So here’s something along the lines of what I said to him each time he cried, or got angry, or refused to put on his nursery clothes, or get in the car: “Oh you’re crying/you’re angry, that’s ok, that makes sense, this is hard for you, this is so new and so different, and you’re feeling sad and scared - That is so normal, there is nothing wrong with you for feeing that right now - You cry as long as you need to, I’m here if you need a cuddle while you cry”.
I dream of one day living in a world where this is the sort of thing I hear coming out the mouths of parents & nursery staff in these tumultuous times, and indeed at any time there is a crying child. We don’t live in this world yet, but I wholeheartedly believe we can get a little bit closer to it if we as parents let this principle guide us through challenges like this, for us and our children - Always leading with allowance, acceptance and validation of feelings, and therefore leading also with compassion for our children, whatever big emotions bubble up to the surface, and whenever they bubble up.
I wonder if the primary barrier to us letting this principle guide us, is the idea that if we validate a difficult feeling then we somehow encourage the difficult feeling - That somehow by saying ‘its ok to feel this way’ we will make it worse. I like to believe that most people genuinely want to help the people they love to feel better, and so I think this is where the ‘oh, stop crying’ message comes from - I do believe it often comes from love, and genuine care, and not wanting our children to be in emotional pain, but I also think it comes hand-in-hand with this myth - That we can, and should, try to control the emotions of our children.
We need to better understand this myth - It truly is a myth that we can, or should even try to, make any emotions worse or better in other people. The truth is, emotions are generated entirely within a person, and then they do pass again, after they are felt, expressed & processed - The only thing we can control in that other person (child or adult) is whether they feel safe to share the expression of those feelings with us, or not. For example - If we see a child crying, and say ‘oh, don’t cry!’, then that child is now likely to feel it is not very safe for them to share those feeling with us - They may stop crying, but this will probably only be to please or appease you - They will likely still be feeling the same sadness or fear inside of their body, and they will now feel both more alone with it, more scared of that feeling, and will likely also feel more shame too, for feeling this way.
Its my view that we have got to stop equating the absence of crying with children being ‘good’, and we have to stop equating a child who is crying with being ‘bad’. We do this in our society in such a subtle way that I’m not even sure we realise were doing it - For example, my heart also breaks when I hear an adult say “good girl/boy” when a child does stop crying - To equate hiding our tears with being ‘good’ is to create an often life-long shame associated with crying, and therefore a life-long, pervasive shame of being human.
On the contrary - If we see a crying child, and we say ‘its ok to cry’, then that child is likely to feel safe to cry, and those tears will dry naturally, once their feelings have passed, which they will do in their own time. On this note, another myth I see crop up again and again in my therapy clients is this idea that if we don’t deliberately stop crying with grit, determination & an active pushing down of those feelings, then we may continue crying forever - This is simply not the case - We cry for as long as we need to, then we stop, every time, and the same is true for our children - Its just that most of us don’t give this natural process a chance. So, if we say ‘its ok to cry’ to our children, we do not make that feeling worse at all - We make that experience of crying feel normal and acceptable, and we make that child feel safe while they are crying, we make that child feel accepted and loved while they are crying.
For our children starting nursery, feeling worried, scared, or sad is natural and healthy, and the natural and healthy way to express those feelings for our three year olds is to cry. Yes, crying is natural and healthy, and we should be supporting our children to do it, especially at this time when their world as they know it is being turned upside down by this new separation from you and home - Staring nursery really is a BIG deal, let's honour that, and honour all of the emotions that come up for them at this time.
And of course, this is also a helpful principle for life more generally, at all times. These principles I applied to my own son’s journey through the transition to starting at nursery, are really not just for getting our children into nursery - They are actually about more widely emotionally supporting our children. They are about confirming to our children that their emotions are wise, and that they can and should keep listening to their feelings and their bodies - That they should not disconnect from themselves or their feelings, just to ‘fit in’ somewhere. They are about supporting our children to manage this (and any) challenge with minimal shame for their struggles and emotions.
These are principles for life. I apply them to my parenting in general, as well as to my son starting nursery, based on everything I have learned as a child & family psychologist over the last 15 years.
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I am Dr. Jenny Turner, Clinical Psychologist, and parenting specialist - The focus of my therapy work in private practice is on how our own childhood impacts our parenting, and therefore the emotional health of our whole family. In particular, I specialise in working with parents to understand how their own emotions were responded to in their childhood, and how this impacts on many aspects of their adult life today, including their self-care, and the way they relate to their child's emotions. I also have a special interests in (a) the mind-body connection, and whether this was enforced, or disrupted, in our own childhood, and (b) how emotional suffering is often linked to a denial our human nature, and therefore how returning to our humanity is an important key to healing.