Balancing Emotions at School Drop-off

Do you know about The Kissing Hand? You can try that. However, if it works to not be all gushy, then try not being so for HIS sake. Save the big hugs for when you pick him up again. It may be that he realizes how you feel and feeds on that vs being confident to go to class. So be confident at that time and find other times to be gushy and remind him you love him SO SO much. You can also try a middle ground where you say you love him, but not in an emotional "what if I never see you again" way.

You know what you need to do, and it's better for him that you do just that. He knows you love him. You show it every day. You're obviously a great Mom. So don't start his days off with a tantrum by lingering to make yourself feel better. Do what's right for him, or give him a big giant hug and sloppy kiss and I love you's while you're still in the car! Then drop off, high five, and go!!

You want... you want... you want.

What you "want" is not what your child "needs" and your "want" is disrupting his day. Your husband is correct. A quick hug and "Have a great day!" is all he needs and clearly all he can handle right now.

If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, he's not really going to think about the last thing you said to him. He's three. They are like goldfish... every day is a new day. By the end of the day, he's forgotten what you said. He would, however, know that he was loved because every choice you make is based on putting his "needs ahead of your own".

You know what you need to do!

I agree with your husband. When my daughter had trouble, I would hug and kiss her at home, say nothing about good bye. We would then get in the car, and I would drop her off and leave, immediately. This way you get your hugs and kisses at home that you want, and you kid gets your quick exit that he needs. Now my daughter is asking me to take her to school on non school days and asking me to leave her there for a long time to play.

I think it's good that you've identified the responsibility as yours, that shows how healthy you want your son to be.

My ex SIL's father was killed in a car accident, and she suffers from this same anxiety that you are describing.
What calmed her fears is that each week she wrote a letter to her kids and put it in their safe so that in case something happened and she was suddenly gone from their lives she could have said exactly what she wanted to her kids. She didn't leave the old ones in there.... just one letter to each of them. Maybe try that.

I also think you can try a simple cognitive behavior exercise. It's called "translation" and it's where you swap out meaning for certain things. Work with me here.... I'm going to make some assumptions.

In your post you make the statement "So what if I get hit by a bus on the way back to my office and my son's last memory of me is walking out without even looking him in the eye?" and "...... and look him right in the eye and tell him how much I love him.... ."
You're associating eye contact with love and assurance for you that your loved ones know that you love them by the fact that you make eye contact with each other. You indicated it twice in your post. This is a big thing for you.
So - what you have to do is *translate* the meaning and swap it out for something that is better for your son. Better for your son = better for you.

You want to "make eye contact" with your son so he knows you love him.

Instead of doing that.... pick something else and translate the meaning.

You want to "give him a high five before you leave the house" so he knows you love him.

You want to "kiss his forehead right when he wakes up in the morning" so he knows you love him.

Make it less important that it's about right when you leave him and MORE important that *whatever the behavior the two of you pick* is at least once a day, or right when he wakes up or right before he goes to sleep.
It's just a simple swap out of a word and a small behavior change that will hugely impact each of your comfort levels.

Good Luck.

I am sorry to say this, but you are creating this problem. The best way for a confident, loving goodbye is to give as many hugs and kisses at home--snuggle time etc. But then when you get to the school, give a great hug, a confident smile and have a great day! Then turn and leave. When he doesn't pick up on your uneasy energy, this will turn around really quick. You have to do this quickly and show him you are fine in leaving him there. Good luck!

Your husband is right, you are creating the problem.

Your needs to make sure he is settled in, having a grand goodbye is causing him to have a grand reaction. You can't have it both ways.

You can't send him off with a this may be the last time we see each other goodbye without him getting scared that this may be the last time I see mom and crying for you.

Say goodbye in the car, make it all you want but not over the top with I loovvveee you so much you are blah blah blah because that will scare him as well but this time you won't even get out of the car. Just say I love you, I can't wait to see you later, okay, lets get going.

Then in the classroom, goodbye, have a great day! and walk away. Your son's memory will be mom loves me, she is happy to see I am going to have fun and she couldn't wait to see me later. If that isn't enough you need to get some help because it can't be good what you are doing to him.

This is one of those parenting moments when what's good for the child is more important than about what you are feeling.
It's better for him not to have a screaming start to the morning.
So get a hold of yourself and do what you have to do so HE has a great day.
If his day starts off great, yours will be more smooth as well.
Give him his hug/kiss at home as you are getting him into the car.
Once you are at school - it's all business and the school/work day has begun.
The 'last chance' you have to see someone is just such a morbid thing to dwell on and it's not fair to impose this on your child.
It may have happened to you - just consider you've hit your quota and it won't happen again.
Just don't go there - not at school.

It comes down to this choice.

You get to cling to him and make drop of a time of misery and anguish

He get's to go to class and stop acting like this.

It's you that is having the hard time letting go. He does fine when you do this the right way.

Any person in child care will tell you that the parents who won't just leave make it so hard on their child. We always wonder why it makes them feel so good to make their kids cry. Maybe it's the guilt of working or something. They want to make sure their kids miss them.

That's truly what you are doing to your child. He does not need you to make sure he's settled. He is in class and is fine. Even if he does cry you need to leave. It makes him cry and hurts him when you don't leave. It makes it so much worse.

Please stop. He needs you to drop him off and leave.

Michelle,

I can totally identify with you on your fear of "getting hit by a bus." I lost my mom when I was 17 and have had this same fear ever since I had my own children!

While I was lucky enough to have kids that seemed as though they couldn't wait to escape my clutches when it came time for school, I can certainly sympathize with your feelings here.

I read through some of the comments and I LOVE the idea of having a long hug at home. At 3, I feel like if something were to actually happen to you I think the more traumatic memory of you leaving him screaming and begging would be a more likely image to stick in his mind and could possibly make things worse for him given a worse case scenario.

While I have never experienced my kids begging me to stay I can say that you will absolutely need to just hold your breath and trust that he knows you love him even if you give him a short goodbye. His teachers know what they are doing, they have been trained to do this for a living :)

While volunteering in the classroom, I have seen countless children break down at drop off. As soon as mom or dad leaves (feeling totally guilty) their child is perfectly fine and has totally forgotten about the fact that they were just clinging to mom's leg, rubbing snot and tears all over a freshly dry-cleaned pair of work pants.

Give him long hugs at home and when you pick him up and he will be fine. Also, you'll save on your dry-cleaning bill :)