Letting your child go to nursery for the first time on their own is a massive leap of faith, up until this point the child may have fully been in your, your partners, your family or friends care the whole time. This is the first step you and your child have achieved to their independence, congratulations it is a major milestone. Even though it is nursery and a for a few hours, someone you don’t know is going to be caring for your child, feeding them, changing their nappy, teaching them.

How does your relationship change?

Firstly now you have a routine, you have to drop your child to the nursery on time, ironically enough I find the journey to the nursery a good time to bond with my child, it’s one of the only times that I get time to sit and talk one to one with him as we take public transport (or if we’re late we drive) we look at all the people and traffic going past, it’s a good chance to practice reading, counting, identifying different colours etc. I ask him what he learns at nursery, who his friends are, what he has for breakfast etc.Actually one of the best things about nursery is that they teach the children proper table manners, how to sit still, feed themselves and wait till they have finished before leaving. That in itself has been one of the major developments I see between children who go to nursery and those who don’t. I’ve been to several parties and play dates where when the food is served some children can’t sit down, they wander about as their parents chase after them trying to feed them.

From what I’ve seen the children who do sit down and eat politely are those who have been taught how to at daycare/nursery.

Whether it’s teaching your child to sit still and eat or anything else for that matter, the child seems somehow to listen better to others, be it teachers, coaches, instructors than they listen to you. Someone asked me why do you send your kids to football classes, after all how difficult is it to teach your kids how to kick a ball? Well it’s true I could spend ages trying to teach them, but they wouldn’t pay attention to me the same way they pay attention to the coach.

I also think there’s a group mentality amongst the children when they are together. You would have thought that a dozen children who don’t ordinarily sit down and eat nicely at the table, that when you get them together mayhem would ensue. But it’s quite the opposite, they all sit down together nicely, they even have conversations. On occasions it’s been known to happen that I am running late to drop my boy to nursery, when we get there breakfast has started, my boy sits down at the table and nicely waits for his food and eats nicely and quietly – It’s really impressive to see this change in behaviour when they are in an external environment and the other children are all behaving this way too.

Phone work tell them you’ll be late in today

There are some occasions that only ever happen once, when that event goes it goes forever. Taking your child for their first day at nursery will only happen once, that feeling to waving goodbye to them as they go in the class is one of the golden moments of parenting. You will drop them to nursery and school hundreds of more times but the first time is the one that holds special significance.I was at the time ahem, between contracts so I was able to drop him and pick him up on his first day, had I have been working I almost certainly would have told them that I’d be in late that morning, this is something not to miss.Thanks for reading, good luck if you are going to take your child to nursery on their own, don’t worry, you are probably more worried than they are, they are excited about the adventure coming up, you should be too. I’d love to hear your stories of letting them go on their own for the first time, please use the comments box below to share.

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Thanks for reading.

Farhan