Preschool Anxiety: Normal for Moms?

I was rather disappointed in the web this morning, especially when I came across a post written by a mommy blogger that had expressed her feelings of anxiety about her daughter’s upcoming first day of preschool. Now I wasn’t disappointed in the post but the lack of sympathy from one of the comments.

IMG: Elizabeth Ferree

I want to ask now how many of you have ever felt a little anxiety or dread of your child’s first day of school/preschool?

Sandra the mommy blogger had this to say:

This was different. It really hit me that someone else outside the family will be taking care of my child – without me.Obviously if I’m sending her to preschool someone else is taking care of her and certainly I’ve looked into the facility and gotten recommendations and I’m comfortable with that. But I guess in the ultimate control freak, paranoid way I started getting scared by the idea that after nearly 3 1/2 years I’m placing her in someone else’s care.Each week, it will be up to someone else to keep her safe as well as happy. 

Raise your hand. Yeah that’s what I thought. Believe it or not an anxiety in a mom is not uncommon, it actually happens to most of us in some way, shape or form. Now I am speaking from a stay at home mom’s point of view but I think even working out of the home moms deal with this too. They probably deal with it even before school because they must trust babysitter/daycare centers. I don’t know about you but I dealt with this very same thing, you are given the gift of a child and are responsible for every single thing about them and then one day you are handing them over to someone else.

Preschool Choices has an article about a Parent’s seperation anxiety for when the child leaves for school for the first time. It is important to remember many times those that have the anxiety are probably doing it for the very first time. They fear how their child will react after they are just left at the school They fear that the teacher may not be as nice as they first thought and what happens if they get scolded and mommy/daddy aren’t there to help them. So as you can see this is a normal feeling and nothing to be ashamed about.

Possible thoughts:
-  Will she miss me?
-  Will the teacher be nice?
-  Will someone pick on her?
-  Will she wish she was at school and not at home?
-  Can she love the teacher more than me?

Just because you have anxiety towards letting your child go does not mean you are stopping them from going. It means that you love your child and want to know without a doubt nothing will go wrong and they won’t feel weird or upset about you leaving.  If you have ever dealt with this issue could you leave some tips for those that have not been there yet?