I have chosen to address today a very topical issue these days, when the process of adapting to the start of a new year of daycare or kindergarten is in full swing. Many parents contact me being in the situation where their crying child can't find a solution, no one can stop it, no one knows what to do with it or how to soothe it. Thus, the child is sent home by the educator who can no longer receive him in this state, the parent is worried and sometimes even desperate because he is in the situation where the child can no longer go to kindergarten with daycare, nor can he stay at home.

I would like to reflect together on several aspects of this difficulty of adaptation and to try to translate this plan in order to understand what it is telling us.

Adjusting to kindergarten is a process that takes time and involves several stages. Preparing for the first day of kindergarten and beyond begins long before that day arrives. Through the way the child builds the nursery, the kindergarten in his or her imagination, through the stories of the other children who are already there, through the words of parents or the memories of grandparents. Thus, kindergarten becomes something familiar, awaited with interest, with joy, but also with emotions, questions, fear.

It is not only the child who has desires, expectations and feelings related to kindergarten, but also everyone else in the family. They are all thinking about what it will be like, how it will cope, what it will like, if it will have difficulties, what results it will achieve. Thoughts, feelings, questions, hopes, doubts of the family, whose bearer is the child.

The first days are difficult even if the child is supported and encouraged. These difficulties come from the fact that going to kindergarten implies an effort on the child's part to cope with the new, to get to know everything that is around him (space, people, toys, activities), as well as due to the change from the previous rhythm, which was predominant in the family and at the child's disposal.

It is useful for those around him to talk a lot during these first days with him, to ask him how it was, to help him put into words what is going on there, what he is like, what he likes, what he doesn't like to help him transform kindergarten into something that is part of everyday family life.

How does crying appear?

The main manifestation of the difficulties mentioned above is crying. It reflects the child's inability to communicate what he is feeling in any other way, especially when he feels overwhelmed, frightened, confused or angry about what is happening to him. Change is very demanding and separation causes distress. The child will spend some time alone, without his parents, a time that will be his own and that he will have to manage and integrate into his life. The constant presence of a mother or other family member provides protection and security. Separation means anxiety, questions, doubts, doubts, sometimes refusal, it is a labor that each child will go through.Sometimes it will be easier to integrate this new experience, sometimes it will be extremely difficult. In the first few weeks it is natural, especially in the mornings, for the child to cry, refuse and protest about going to kindergarten. Then the child will get used to it and the child's gradation will start at its natural pace.

When does crying become a cause for concern?

When the child's opposition is very strong, when it is accompanied by screaming, yelling, aggressive protests, somatic manifestations (vomiting, fever, headaches, tummy aches), repeated, silence, apathy. When, once at kindergarten, he will not stop crying for several hours, no activity being able to calm him down, when he can only stay there in the presence of a parent or a grandparent or a babysitter.

What can we do?

These manifestations will not go away on their own, but will continue to persist because they reflect a child's distress, and ignoring them will cause a further worsening of the distress and an increase in distress. It is important for parents to seek help in understanding their child's distress and to work out together a way to make it possible for the child to adjust to kindergarten. It is not a renunciation of going there, but it is a time allocated perhaps in parallel with the kindergarten in which the child will be able to acquire the ability to separate, to calm down when alone and especially the confidence that he will not always be alone, but every day the parents will pick him up from the kindergarten after school.

And parents adapt?

It is not only a difficult experience for the child, but for the parents as well. Because often the child's distrust and anxiety are first of all the parents', who cannot let him go away, to be alone, who are afraid to be separated from him for a few hours, who cannot bear his passage into this new stage and his step towards being responsible for him and autonomous.What the child feels is a mirror of what the parent feels and his face faithfully reflects the parent's.

As far as parents are concerned, communication is essential in this whole process that starts with the first day of kindergarten and continues for a long time. To communicate, i.e. to express their thoughts, moods, expectations, thanks or disappointments, anger or joy, doubt or confidence, and to let the child express himself. To create a link in which all this flows from one to the other. Because by listening to them and letting them flow, they will make sense, they will transform, they will become a link that will bind the whole family together.