Dear Dáithí: It’s my daughter’s first day of school — and I’m terrified

You have over a week done now with your daughter in school and you being separated, and you know what, you all survived and the sky didn’t fall in.

Dear Dáithí,

My little girl is starting school this September, and my heart feels like it’s breaking. She’s six — quiet, thoughtful, and happiest in the company of adults.

I’ve kept her at home as long as I could, but now the time has come for her to take this big step.

We can’t have any more children, for reasons I won’t go into here, but she is my one and only. I adore her. 

She’s never been away from me for more than an hour or two, and the thought of a whole school day without her leaves me with a knot in my stomach. I’m nearly crying writing this, to be honest. 

But I know she needs this, friends her own age and all that, but I’m terrified. I worry she won’t know how to navigate the rougher edges of playground life. 

I had a very hard time in school myself, and my worst nightmare is for history to repeat itself.

I’m determined not to pass my anxiety on to her. I put on a brave face when we talk about school — I tell her it is exciting and fun. But I so dread the empty house.

How do I make sure she’s OK when she’s away from me? How can I trust she’ll cope, and that the world will be kind to her (when I know it can be a cruel place)? And how do I cope with letting her go?

This is an exciting and also a worrying time for parents, it’s a new chapter that you haven’t read yet, and this brings uncertainty, and if you keep going down that road, you know where you’ll end up? On the side of the ditch.

You might think that this answer is coming a week late because the schools are back already, but I did sit down before this to reply and decided to hold off.

When you are coaching and mentoring someone, you focus on past wins and use them going forward, and that’s why we are here today.

You have over a week done now with your daughter in school and you being separated, and you know what, you all survived and the sky didn’t fall in.

You have taken this big step and are now ready for the next one this week. This, to me, is a win — a win that might have seemed impossible last month, and the bigger win is that you did this on your own with no help from me.

This means you don’t need anyone; you have the power to do this, but I can make the journey forward easier!

I do understand that you’ve been with her almost every hour of the day since she was born, so it’s very easy to see why you are feeling the way you are.

Every parent will empathise with you, but you’re at a stage now where you must look at the big picture for her and, indeed, for yourself.

People will be saying that you should have done this and that before now, but here we are, and we will deal with the now!

I’ve broken this into 3 Rs.

The first one might be the hardest; you need to relinquish control. You have had control over the whole situation up until now, and the situation has changed.

She is now going to school, where the teacher is in charge of her day, and there isn’t anything you can do about it.

This is a fact. You need to work on this one. I know you can’t just flick a switch, emotions aren’t like that.

So, you’ve got a bit of work to do here.

The second R is resilience. This is probably the most important thing you will ever pass on to your child, and it will stay with them forever.

They will only learn this by being with other people and by taking the knocks life will throw at them, even a five-year-old stealing a sweet from them.

I know we don’t like to see our children in this situation, but that is just life.

You need to have a look at your own resilience too; you need to build on what you have. Your daughter will learn more from your actions than from anything you will say to her.

You do seem very emotional with all of this, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings here, and I understand it’s tough on you, but you do need to toughen up a little; it’s the best thing for you and your daughter.

And the final R is reality. You have to see what is real here. The reality is that nothing bad is going to happen to her in school.

Schools are great places to be nowadays, and are very different to when we were there, and you certainly pass any bad experiences you had on to her.

Again, the reality is that whatever caused your rough time in school is NOT there anymore.

Our parents had it easier in one sense because they didn’t really know what we all were most of the time, and today’s parents are involved in everything and I know that myself, and again that’s why I know where you’re coming from. I, too, had to stop reacting to everything.

Navigating playgrounds is part of being a child and growing up. I remember the young fella being confronted by an older boy one day, and I was going to say something, but I wanted to see what would happen, and the young fella stood up for himself.

That’s a great feeling, but there is only one way to learn that, and that is by living it, so don’t be afraid of that!

The other part of this for you is the ‘empty house’ part, so you need to empty it more and not be in it as much yourself, go out and get busy.

This is your time, and go and do the things you want to do. Just because she is in school doesn’t mean you have to sit around waiting for her.

Actually, when I was off and dropped the boy off to school, I was away for a bit of ‘me time’ and breakfast, this is one thing you can control, so go and do it!