My child is crying while going to school

Over the last 2 months, I have spoken with or chatted with maybe a hundred parents who have shared that their child does not want to go to school. The child cries either before going, during going to the school, or when dropping off. And while in many cases the child is okay after being dropped, sometimes the child continues crying in the class asking for Mumma.

And the question was the same. What should they do?

Should they stop sending the child to school? Should they push the child and not care? What should they do with the guilt that only a parent can carry seeing their child cry?

As I was thinking about these I was reminded of something that had happened in our house recently.

My daughter is 7 years old now. Her school had started a wonderful initiative of renting a farm and growing vegetables with kids. The idea was for the children to understand how food is grown. To understand that it doesn’t magically appear on their plate. It takes time and effort. This involved going to the farm once every month on a 2-hour bus ride, being in a small open hut on the farm, working in the sun, making manure, putting seeds, watering plants, harvesting - actually the entire crop cycle. The trip started at 6:00 am in the morning and the kids were back by 6:00 pm. About 27 kids between the age of 6-10 years years old.

After the first two trips, my daughter refused to go. And we were at a loss at why was she refusing. Because she is a fairly independent child. At the back of my and Bhakti’s (my wife) minds it was clear that for the child to refuse to go on a trip with her friends, there has to be reasonable reason.

So I spoke to the founder of the school, Geeta. And she said, just bring her to the bus, then we will see. So for the next trip, we tried but our daughter refused to budge. “I will not go”. “I don’t want to go”. And she missed that trip. This went on to the extent that she said, I will not go to any farm now (which was serious for me because I love spending time in nature).

There was a month before the next trip. During this month the teacher asked our daughter to come to the trip. Her friends told her about the trip. I reminded her of the fun times she had there. This positive chatting brought her to the point where she said: I will only go if you or mumma go with me.

So I called Geeta and she said, “OK, the school will allow you to come. But we have to find a way for you to stop coming.”. It would have been easy for her to say, it’s ok, we have a rule in the school. We can’t break it for you. Or to say: push her against her will, let her cry, we will see. But she didn’t and agreed with the suggestion of the child.

I agreed and told my daughter and wife.

The next morning our daughter was awake, she had packed her bag and was happy to go with me to the bus. We had a good ride and a good trip. And during that day we found the reason why she didn’t want to go.

It was a spider in the washroom.

The farm had an old washroom with cobwebs. And obviously spiders. And somehow our daughter had picked a fear of spiders. So she did not want to go to the washroom alone and wanted me to accompany her. That was the only time in the entire day she actually needed me or Bhakti.

When we came back home the three of us had a good funny conversation about this. While the mahaul was light our daughter still refused to go without one of us.

I mentioned this to Geeta and we decided to continue with me accompanying her on the trips. This went on for two more trips during which I moved from going inside the washroom to actually standing outside. Also, the school informed the farm and the farm got the cobwebs cleared. So now there were no spiders inside the washroom. But by now my daughter had gotten accustomed to me going with her.

When I had agreed to start going with her, I had mentioned to her that, look I am going, but I can’t come all the time. So at some point you will have to go yourself, is that ok? And she had said yes.

So I went to her and said, look the spider is gone and the bathroom is clean. And if there is any problem the teacher has said she will come with you. So next time you can go yourself. Instantly she said, No, you have to come.

I remember we were just prepping for sleep and I said, you know that Mumma and Dadda love you, right? And you know we would also want to come. But other kids are also asking why can’t their parents come? It’s not OK that only you get to take your parent. While others cannot. You needed me, I was there, Geeta teacher also said ok. Now you can go yourself, so please do and have lots of fun with friends.

She looked at me and said: But I will take my books with me to read, 5 of them.

And that was it. Since then she has been going to the farm herself and I have been missing the trips.

This proved to us as adults that if we can take our kid's concerns a little more seriously, be a little flexible, and help them overcome their fears, they will move forward without carrying any scars.

This is an important bit.

It is possible to just say: you have to go with authority and force the child. And the child just might go. But we don’t know what scars will they carry.

The easy solution would have been to miss the farm trips, after all, it was once a month. But we would have also missed the opportunity to work with a child and help them overcome their fears.

Every parent had the same problem: my child is crying while attending school. What do I do?

But as I chatted with these parents, the reason why the child did not want to go to school kept on changing from household to household. Sometimes it was

• that a new sibling has come and the child feels he will lose the love of the parent or
• that the teacher shouted at another kid and the child got scared or
• that the parent could no longer be there to pick up the child after school and the bus was the problem or
• that there was a child on the bus who was being a bully or
• that the parent had been ill in the hospital for a week and the child missed them dearly or
• that the parent had taken a long trip without the child and when they came back the child refused to go or
• that the real problem was lying to the child to prevent crying which resulted in more crying later or
• that another child had bit the child in class and the child was now afraid

All these reasons boiled down to

• that her safe place which is her mom and house was missing or
• the child has acquired some fear which makes the child go to the place she knows is the safest in the world: the arms of her parents, their house.

And the solution to both is a two-step one.

The first step is - connection with the parent. For the child to know that the parent is going to be there for her. We can do this by

• listening to her
• taking her concern seriously
• giving her hugs
• having a routine so that she does not have to predict when will she get Mama or Dadda’s time

This is what we did by going with my daughter on a long farm trip.

The second step is to have active experiences with her so that the child grows the confidence to move a bit away from you. Because of Covid, having single kids, and less outdoor time, our children have been missing these active experiences which help them gain confidence in the shadow of parents. So by doing the small things like the ones below, we can make our child more confident.

• setting play dates so that she makes a good friend in school and
• being with her in the school for some time and not stopping it abruptly but by letting her know and
• stopping screens and
• increasing outdoor time where she gets used to going further and further away from you while feeling secure

This is what we did by letting her have a positive experience at the farm without me tagging everywhere.

The intent of sharing this long story was to share that many times the exact answer is not simple or straightforward. That do A, B, C and it is done. But the direction in which one should work is simple.

It is not to make the child feel that the child is committing a crime by refusing to go to school. And to be loving so that we can truly see beyond the crying and understand the reason.

Thank you for being curious.

P.S.: Another big reason children don’t want to go to school is because school makes the kids sit and study - which is not age-appropriate for young kids. And they are protesting. I am personally absolutely against that kind of education. But many of our schools are like that. So the minimum we can do is find a school that does that with love and understanding.

Finally, if along with crying you see that your child’s behaviour is overall changing because of school, then TAKE A HARD LOOK. Go ask for CCTV footage to understand what is happening. The child is not an idiot, when there is change, there is always a reason.

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