 Hello, so this is a quick recording in response to a question from one of my Patreons With Lyra in the background doing the jigsaw say hello Lyra and more in the background anyway Anyway, so live from the home of the Knights and the Pesman House family So the question is About a nursery school aged child who is struggling to attend So I've done lots and lots of work about school-based anxiety and emotionally based school avoidance in children from kind of primary school age and onwards But this is about a child who's struggling to attend nursery school and having meltdowns or tantrums or similar big episodes in the morning and Both at nursery and at home. They're wondering what to do next because they don't seem to be making progress So I'm going to put this as a shout-out on my socials And I would love to hear what you're doing if this is something that is an area of expertise or experience for you But my immediate thoughts on this one are first of all as with any age If we are going to try and overcome the problem to address the issue We need to work out what the problem is what the issue is. Why does this child? Find that they can't go to nursery right now. What's going on for them? What can happen if we don't do this if we don't explore that is that we start trying to fix the wrong problem And that's really really unsustainable. So we need to work out. What's the actual problem here? And with younger children then good ways of doing that can be through play That can be through use of stories and exploring through characters And it might just take a little bit longer You can also do things like in your play Or using sort of images and visuals of kind of walking through the day thinking about different people and Places and just seeing how they feel in response to those different things and trying to see if there's anything there that makes them feel Angry or anxious or sad. For example, they might not have all the words for that But by beginning to explore it through play We can begin to see the bits that feel easy and good and calm and happy and all those nice things And the bits that maybe feel a little bit more tricky and we might begin to identify if there are Faces or spaces or elements of the day or the situation that feel trickier The other thing that we can think about when Helping again children of any age but thinking about this particularly with the nursery school age children now so our early years Is thinking about what that drop-off looks like because we might have a bit of kind of separation anxiety going on here That's very very common in younger children And particularly our kind of kids who are coming up through who might have had really intense at home time During covid and so thinking about what that drop-off moment looks like Ideally we want to have home and nursery working together to agree what these kind of routines and rituals look like in the morning And you know, we should try and make it a little bit fun for the child But fun but in a repetitive boring kind of way because it needs to feel as similar as it can every day So the child learns this is what happens. It's safe I know what to expect and it's going to be okay That's the message we're trying to get across here And we might do this through things like Creating a special way of saying goodbye. So perhaps there might be a special handshake or a way of Having a hug or a kiss or a little song that we sing Whatever works between the child And the adult who is saying goodbye to them It's it's about making it work for them creating their own little ritual there And them thinking about and who are they being passed on to? So who is going to meet and greet and make this child feel excited? I'm ready to engage with the day ahead and make that fun for them Is there an activity that they might be able to engage with right away? That's going to get them really really keen and motivated to enter the building Perhaps there's another child they particularly want to play with or a responsibility that they like to have It will really depend on the individual child But it's about thinking about both how to make that goodbye feel okay and feel safe and feel the same each day So we get used to it But then also about making it exciting fun calming safe whatever that child needs in order to go in and enter The other bit of the equation here that's really important is that you must remember if you're working in the nursery If a child has a difficult goodbye And perhaps there is distress tears upset anger any sort of big tricky feeling for a parent or carer to watch Assume as the person working with that child That we are going to think that child has stayed in that state All day unless you tell us otherwise So one of the things that can help Is if you could just let us know Actually your child did come and it was okay because that helps us as the adult at home to know Oh, okay. Good. Actually, they're all right. That reduces our anxiety That gives us permission and the ability to go on and get about the rest of our day to perhaps even exercise a little self care And means that we're more able to support that child moving forward We're we're less anxious our emotional resilience is higher and and so on and so forth So that communication between home and nursery actually really makes a big difference here all around So, yeah, that's this is where I would start essentially try and understand what the issue is Why is there this this reluctance? Why can't the child? Attend as perhaps their peers are managing what's the blockage here? So then we can begin to think about is there anything we can do to address change manage that for for this child And then be thinking okay Are there ways that we can make that actual moment of drop-off? We can be challenging for both child and parent or carer More predictable more fun more motivating for the child and make sure that they feel safe And ready to enter making it the same each day So they know just what to expect which means it gets easier and easier and easier I look forward to hearing your ideas too I'll pop over onto the socials now and put a call out because you always have so many brilliant suggestions I really look forward to hearing them. Okay. Until next time. Bye. Bye