Ivy, Mspiggy
Her school principal shared with me at this age, kids are still fairly ego-centri, so it's all about "me-me-me". Identity attachment is v impt to them, so she suggested that it's best that they hv frens in the prog with them. This is how I built identity attachment for her at drop off gym & art clas:
1. 1st time she cried like mad, let her be (but our hearts sink la, be patient with them n wif ourselves), I take the time to size up which teachers r v patient wif young kids and whom shan like, and ask them if they can there at 2nd session & subsequent ones to bring her in. They normally cooperate, and will spend a lot of time wif her at subsequent sessions to familiarise her wif activites + environment, helps build a lot of confidence. I notice that at church, Shan hv a fave Sunday school teacher too....always going to him
2. For the gym 2nd session last Sat, I saw tis 5 yo n 3 yo sisters hanging around, waiting for class to start, n got Shan to share her sweets with them, n got them all to introduce one another. Made frens like tat. At gym itself, when Shan was starting to feel uncomfy (though the teacher she liked was with her then), the new 3 yo fren voluntarily went to sit rite next to Shan n she felt a lot better. The astute gym teacher naturally put them both in the same team of 3. End of session, I praised Shan like mad for doing it alone n I also told the 3 yo's mum wat a great fren she was to Shan. Needless to say, next week onwards, Shan's gonna feel a lot more confident cos she now has a fren + a teacher to look fwd to
3. I also used sweets to bribe her to go. She only gets to hv sweets on Sat, so it's a v v precious commodity. I ask her to choose 2 types, one for pre-gym, another for post-gym. Before gym starts, when the teacher was going to bring her in, she started to "no, no, no", so I passed the sweets to teacher and Shan "guai guai" follow, not without putting up a good resistance
. Then post gym reward her with another sweet lor.
4. We spend the whole week prepping her that it's a drop off class, she's inside, we are outside, and she can see us. We also said "adults are not allowed inside, only children + teachers". And got reinforcement from staff at these drop-offs to tell her the exact same thing. It helps tat they hear from outsiders, then from us parents
. Just keep piling positive reinforcing comments on them.
Mspiggy
Who are Wes' good frens in school? Use their names & familiar teachers there to make him look forward ?
