Preschool started about a month ago. The school has built brand new unit to welcome children between 2 and 3 years old. Ben’s class is made of 8 children looked after by 2 teachers. The teachers/children ratio is amazing compared to most Italian schools where there are only 2 teachers for 25/30 kids of different ages.
Ben loves it! He’s learning social skills, many new words, new games, he’s getting more creative and independent. He’s even getting a nice British accent, and now he sounds ridiculously funny when he speaks Italian!
It’s all that I imagined it would be, but, because there is always a but, the class is at a “wrong” time, between 12.30 and 3.30, exactly when he would normally get his afternoon nap.
Since the very start I was worried about it, despite everyone telling me “he will get used to it“. I was right to worry, and for once, I wish I wasn’t!
Ben’s behaviour is getting worst by the day. He’s over-tired, he even wakes up that way, and the constant lack of sleep boosts his aggressive side.
I miss my sweet boy, the one who makes me laugh and is always kind. Now there is only kicking, slapping, screaming, shouting “no” to most requests, and the upsetting “go away” when I try to help him through his meltdowns.
Diego keeps telling me not to take all this personally, but at the moment I’m struggling with it.
Ben’s disruptive behaviour is a constant, both during the day and the night. Yes, because he’s no longer sleeping through the night now. He now wakes up two/three times a night crying and calling for me. Once I get into the room all I get is an angry “go away” as soon as I approach his bed. If I try to pick him up, the kicks, the toys throwing, and the screaming reach a new level.
Ben’s teachers had stopped me a few times “Ben has been very hands on today. We will monitor him“. Sure they can keep an eye on him, but the solution is to find him a spot in the morning class! When I told them that (again and again) they weren’t too impressed with my solution and they just told me “another couple of weeks and he will get used to the new routine”. Grrrrr!! I could feel a rush of blood to the head…
I’m feeling low and demoralised, and I don’t know what to do to improve the situation.
I thought about skipping school this year, and try again in one year time when Ben turns 3. Then I look at Ben’s eyes light up when the school gate opens, and I think that I cannot deny him this experience.
A friend told me that I look at Ben’s outbursts with the eye of an adoptive parent, and not those of a birth mother. Maybe she’s right, I over-worried and wait for problems to emerge, just because he was adopted. Or maybe I just don’t feel like asking Ben to get used to situations that he clearly cannot handle yet.
Last week Ben hasn’t been feeling too well. Nothing serious, but no school for a couple of days. I had such a great time with him! He was happy, relaxed, playful. No screaming, no kicking, no shouting and, more importantly, no meltdowns.
In between a nappy change and a paint session, suddenly my sweet caring lovable boy came back. Now I’m scared he will vanish again with the next school run.
My son has been in nursery provision at a pre school for 6 months. After Easter, they moved him to a pre school class: new teacher/new room/lower ratios (1 to 6 rather than 1 to 4). Day 1 he was great i think he ran on adrenaline. On day 2 of this, he scratched 3 children and the whole week his behaviour was aggressive at home. I found that really hard as we had worked hard to manage early aggression outbursts and it had really settled. We are a year into life with our beautiful boy and I now see that aggression is his stress response. My husband works away a reasonable amount and over the weekend we discussed these events and concluded that we did not need that stress as a family. For me, nursery is firstly a support as i have no other childcare, and secondly it is developmental. I realised that if this behaviour continued, then nursery would no longer be the support that I need it to be. On the Monday, we spoke with the school and they agreed that he should remain in nursery provision and move to pre school in Autumn. I was lucky, they also felt sad to see him regress to behaviours they had seen him grow away from and they supported our view.
My personal view is that I do not want my son being in aggressive states for sustained time: he learns to hurt, he learns to keep people away, and at the end of the day aggression is a stress response. Caroline Archer is very clear in her book to stop aggressive behaviour as soon as possible, it is not a behaviour to ignore and I agree with her. Also, I just couldn’t take it. I was getting really exhausted as he was worse at bedtimes and I was up until 11 at nights trying to contain difficult behaviours. Now that he’s back in nursery, we are fine. I now can help him to be ready for the transition in Autumn and yes, i know that this is needed.
I know the dilemma of am I being an over protective adoptive mum, but when this arose I felt courage, courage that my son is adopted, he has lived through change that other kids haven’t, and while I want him to have great experiences, I want him more than anything to feel loved and secure. He’s only 3. I encourage you to listen to what you know inside that your son needs. Don’t allow him to be in a situation where he stays in high stress, he does not need this and neither do you. We have returned to happiness and love in our house and I think that’s the most important thing of all.
Thanks for sharing your story.
I felt a big sense of relief when realising that I wasn’t making things up, and that I wasn’t alone in this situation. I much appreciate your suggestion of following my heart, because, as you, I think that my son’s happiness (and the happyness of my whole family) comes before everything else. Thank you also for the passion you transmitted in your story, it reinforced my instinct. After all, allowing our children some time is not a loss, but just a battle won with a different strategy.
Thank you for your honesty, Laura! I feel like so many parents (adoptive, or otherwise) have this same struggle and rarely do people want to be honest about it.
I just want you to know I have two children who never went to preschool and they are socially doing outstanding! I also have two children (adopted as older children) who went to preschool and preschool was a struggle. But, they were also new in our home. There are always so many variables!
All this is to say, I hope you can go with your gut. Every child is different. I do not think either of my children who “missed out” on preschool have missed out on anything. But, both of them consistently told me through their behavior home was the best place for them. And them being home was best for me too.
The struggle is real and your honesty is refreshing.
Hi Nicole, thanks for your comment.
Ben is very sociable and loves being with other kids. I think he likes preschool most of all for this reason.
He’s the only child in our home. We live in a small village where the opportunities to meet other children are very limited, and all our friends have kids who are now at college.
We are now waking up a bit early in the morning, so that Ben can have a morning nap before going to school. This is helping a little, but we will give it a couple of weeks and see how it goes.
I feel that pre school is only one way so thanks Nicole as Inagree that time with mum and dad is very important and is why I gave up work. A bit of nursery has worked for us. My son does 3 x half day sessions and is otherwise with us.I think the key is good chats with nursery. I try to let them know when for example my husband is away on a business trip, as often there will be some ‘behaviour’ from my son in those times and it helps them to offer a bit more support to him. Or Laura for you if they could consider mornings, or build up session times more slowly.
My son has grown a lot in his ability to be with other kids happily and while I know that social skills aren’t essential to develop right now, the fact that he is better at this has made our lives easier and better. I feel nursery has contributed a lot to this development. Because he’s learnt to take turns, ask to share etc (instead of using aggression)I can be more relaxed on outings knowing he will be fine with other kids ( this wasn’t always the case, I’ve had to apologise to other parents a lot). He still spends most of his time with me and my husband, but he does enjoy a good run about with other kids. Today we saw a little boy at the park that he used to play badly with (a year ago). They giggled together and learnt each other’s names and played together on a slide. Huge step forward.
What I felt when the move to another class did not work was that the hints you get in adoption training that adopted kids may find transitions hard, rang true. I don’t want to avoid transitions, but I can ensure we are thoughtful and supportive when transients are happening.
Since when we registered Ben to preschool our choice was for the morning class. We only found out few days before his starting date that he was assigned to the afternoon one.
It was a big adjustment for him, and we are still working in making the transition as relaxed as possible. Things are looking up. We’ll surely look into a morning preschool for next year.
In the meantime, we’ll keep all options open.
All the best with it! It’s been nice sharing stories with you! It is always very nice to know others have similar things happening in their families.
If you find he starts to find it difficult you can always stop. I wouldn’t feel he was missing out on experience. He has many many years ahead of him for nursery and school and in fact only a small time left where he can be with you all the time and work on attachment. He is still very very young. It may be that he enjoys the activities and other children but in reality the time away from you may be too much and he is possibly showing you this through his behaviour. It is telling that these things all stopped when he had time off. It’s great that things look like there on the up and I hope the sleep has improved ‘cos it’s a bit of a killer isn’t it!
Hi Caroline, thanks for your kind words. We actually had a good week! Sleep for all the family has greatly improved, and we can now all enjoy a full night sleep! The morning nap is working miracles on Ben, he’s more relaxed, happy and playful. Teachers told me today that Ben hasn’t been aggressive all week, and that he was very sweet and nice with the other children. I don’t want to jinx it, but yes, it looks like we might have found a routine that agrees with Ben.
Starting nursery is tough. Our daughter had to go at 22 months when I went back to work just over a year after she came home. She’d stopped her morning nap but still had (and still does have at just gone 3) a long afternoon nap which she wouldn’t do to start off with at nursery. It was awful as she was so tired and seemed to scream constantly and wasn’t sleeping well through the night either. She did settle though and adapted to have less sleep the days she was at nursery and caught up the days I was off and weekends. She loves (most of the time!) going to nursery now and it has brought her on so much in terms of her development and social skills but it was so hard to start off with and I felt so guilty for having to go to work. Fingers crossed you’ve found the routine that works for you all.
Hi Suzy, it took us long time but we have now found what’s work for us. It’s difficult sometimes to understand what’s the best thing to do. For us that was withdraw Ben for school. Thanks for commenting and sharing your experience. XX