Tips for the Reluctant School Starter!

Every September, there is one parent left standing in the schoolyard whose child has to be physically pried from them, crying and screaming because they don't want to go to school.....one September, I was that parent.......

- Starting School - Tips for the Reluctant School Starter! -

As you approach the school gates, the little hand feels warm in yours. You hear the chatter and laughter from the school yard, and the hand tightens. Your heart starts beating faster and your stomach muscles tense. You look down into tear filled eyes and you hear the words you’ve been dreading all morning “I don’t want to go to school….”

A few years ago, my youngest started school and happily skipped in for the first few days. He then informed me, that actually he’d had enough school and would much rather stay with me. Cue tears, screaming, clinging and physical extraction from me at the school door every morning. I had recently qualified as an NLP Practitioner, I thought to myself, ‘what have I learned that I can put into practice and help him’? I used the following tools over a weekend and one morning early the following week, he just trotted in to his classroom and didn’t look back. The transformation in him was so immediate, that his teacher approached me a couple of weeks later and asked what “magic” had I used to create such a huge change in him.

1. Use of Language – Avoiding toxic words

“If you don’t cry going into school…..”
“Try to be brave going into school…”
“Please don’t cry going into school….”

You may remember in a previous post, I discussed our unconscious use of "toxic" language with children. We generally gravitate to using negative commands in our everyday lives, especially with our children e.g. don’t run across the road, don’t fall, if you are good today.
But actually our brains are programmed that they find it hard to process negative commands. If we are given a negative command, our brains actually have to visualise the image and then tell itself not to do it.
For example, if I say to you "Don't think of a red balloon". What is the first thing you visualise? A red balloon! It works the same way for children.

Below are some examples of language and words we may use to encourage our children into school when actually they have the opposite effect!

- If you are brave going into school…. (presupposes the child may not be brave)
- Try to be brave this morning…. (presupposes failure, giving the child permission to fail)
- Don’t cry going into school ….(focus is on the opposite of what we want)

With careful use of words and language, we can create a totally different picture!

“When you are brave going into school……..”

In my son’s case, any time school was mentioned, our sentences always began with “When you are brave going into school…..”

2. Create a Picture of what is needed to be achieved and reinforce it
I.e. going into school happily!:

Create a visual image (or picture) of what you want to achieve (in this case, the child going into school happily) and walk him/her through the picture, at intervals throughout the day and on the way to school:

The following is the "picture" I created, but adapt it to your schoolyard routine.

“When we get to the school gates, we’ll walk over to your line together. We’ll join the line and when teacher comes out you’re going to give me a big kiss and walk up to the door. At the door, you’ll turn around and give me thumbs up and feel so proud…”

Here, with the use of positive imagery and language, we are literally walking the child through the act of going (happily!) into school. And by reinforcing it as we feel necessary, we are embedding the picture.

Our thoughts, good or bad, create our reality. The better our thoughts, feelings and projections, the better our future! In this case, contributing to a smoother transition for the child into school.

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