What it looks like
Some children are excited until the night before. Some are worried for weeks and fine on the day. Some are fine for a week and then refuse, once they understand that school is every day. All three are ordinary.
What tends to help
Make the unknown known: walk the route, look at the building, say the teacher's name at home so it is a person rather than a word.
Rehearse the morning a few times before it counts — clothes, breakfast, shoes, bag — so the first day is a morning they have already had.
Keep goodbyes short and the same every day. A long goodbye tells a child that something worrying is happening.
Promise what you can keep. Not "it will be fun", but "I will be at the gate at three o'clock" — and then be there.
These are our practical suggestions. If a child is still very distressed after the first weeks, their teacher is the best person to talk to first.
Where a book comes in
A story about a child being brave in a new place is a rehearsal they can repeat as often as they like. If the child walking in is them — their name, their bag, their teacher, their best friend from daycare — it stops being a general story about school.
