Top Tips for Starting School from our friends at NEST

 

Lucy is a trained Norland Nanny and Maternity Practitioner with over ten years of experience. She has worked with children 0-17 years both privately, and in the community for the NHS.

Lucy founded NEST (an Early Years Consultancy) in 2018 and feels passionate about working alongside families, and offering them a supportive service that is bespoke to them as a family, whilst ensuring the advice given is up to date evidence-based.

Starting school can cause all sorts of anxiety for parents, caregivers and children, especially when it’s their very first day in Reception!

Here are some top tips to hopefully ease the anxiety for everyone:

• For your little ones very first day in reception, if they are particularly anxious, it might be worth thinking about putting some of your perfume on their wrist or clothing so if they become anxious during the day then they can smell the perfume for reassurance. Please also ensure you reassure your little one that it is ok to feel all sorts of emotions on their first few days!
• If perfume is something you don’t wear, then perhaps you could draw a little biro cross near their wrist, and also one on yours. After drawing the cross, if you kiss the cross on your little one, and get them to do the same to your cross, if they are feeling wobbly, they can look at the cross and remember it was a kiss from their caregiver.
• Before starting school in September: ensure your little one is toilet trained, can get themselves dressed and undressed, can identify their own belongings, can use cutlery, and is able to socialise with other children and adults. This will be such a huge help to them at school!
• Have a good bedtime routine, and morning routine, which is calm and consistent- there is nothing worse than having a stressful morning before school!
• Be reassured if you notice a change in their behaviour in the first few weeks of school- this is completely normal and hopefully with time and consistent routines and boundaries, will settle down.
• Please don’t forget to be gentle on yourselves those first few days- ensure you have some self-care time as your little one starting school can be an emotional roller-coaster!

If you feel you would like further support with your little one starting school, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Lucy at NEST.

You can do this either by dropping us an email, giving us a call, or sending us a message on one of our social media platforms

If you would like to chat with NEST about making a more tailored moving plan to suit your family, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via our website at n-est.co.uk or by phone on 07825 308570.

You can also find us on Facebook at facebook.com/NESTchildren and on Instagram at @nest.children