Primary School Worries

children thinking about primary school

Is your not so little one heading to primary school this year? At Devon Nurseries, we have some very important tips for primary school preparation! Our Devon Nurseries pride on working closely with parents to ensure your children are ready for school and one thing we like to focus on is dealing with worries.

Change can be new and even worrying for young children. No one likes to see their child upset, but the best way to deal with their problems isn’t to ignore them and focus on something else, but to tackle them and to help them deal with the issue. Afterall, the goal isn’t to eliminate worries, but to help your children manage them.

Don’t avoid their worries. When focusing on dealing with worries, make sure to respect their feelings, help them think things through and model good ways to deal with anxiety. Dealing with worries can be tricky, but we’ve got some tips on how to help!

The Worry Monsters

At Devon Nurseries, we want to make dealing with worries suitable for children of all ages. Our settings have Worry Monsters. These cuddly friends are a great place for children to store their worries and give them the confidence to express them.
The children take it in turns to express their worries in art.
Their art gives them opportunity to express their emotions and talk about their worries.
Sometimes they can even draw their worry, feed their art to the worry monster and a team member at Devon Nurseries would help them find the resolution.
You can do this at home too! Encourage your child to draw out their worry & feed it to a special worry jar whilst encouraging your child to talk about it.

For children and grown ups, talking about how we feel is the best way to find the right solution. Worries such as “not seeing mummy as much” were soon resolved with “mummy will be there to pick you up” and others like “I won’t have my friends there” resolved with “a new school is the chance to make new friends, and you can see your nursery friends at the weekend.”

Tips at Home

When talking about change and starting school, here are some things to consider:

  • Come up with a routine that will comfort your child that you will do before and after school every day.
  • TALK! Always talk about school and what they might do there.
  • Reach out to other parents whose children will be attending the same school. Feel free to contact the Devon Nurseries setting your child attends and our staff will let you know which of your child’s friends are attending the same school.
  • Start a worry jar! (Place notes of your child’s worries in the jar like our worry monsters.)
  • Model calm energy.
  • Take visits to the school through the summer.
  • Practise school activities such as putting on PE kits or registration.

At Devon Nurseries, we are here to help both children and parents deal with any worries regarding change.