By Jenny Brown | Parent Hope Blog 

The Green family was preparing for a big milestone. Their eldest daughter, Maddie, will be starting school /kindergarten in a couple of weeks. Her parents, Joe and Sarah, are approaching this transition with a mix of excitement and anxiety. How will their little girl manage this big change? Attending school five days a week and having a structured learning program will be a big step from her two days of daycare.

Sarah is reading all she can find on preparing Maddie for this change, and Joe is keen to hear how they can work as a parenting team to build positive anticipation for their daughter. They are reading her stories each night about what school is like and how to handle fears. They are taking photos of Maddie in her school uniform, including new shoes and a backpack, and sending these to grandparents who are encouraged to be part of the preparation team. Sarah is checking in to hear how Maddie is feeling about school and coaching her daughter to name her worries and put them in her bedside worry jar so she can leave them behind when the big day comes (an idea she saw on Instagram).

Such loving care is going into Maddie’s preparation, and yet the closer the big day gets, the more Maddie expresses apprehension. She becomes increasingly clingy with her mother, saying she doesn’t want to go to school anymore and wants to stay at home. Sarah is confused, recalling how confident her daughter was a few months ago at her kindy orientation. She starts working harder to name Maddie’s emotions, reassuring her that it’s okay to have big feelings and that she’ll learn to really love school.

Can you see what’s happening? A familiar parent–child worry cycle has been activated. The more Maddie’s parents try to take away their daughter’s worries, the more Maddie retreats into anxious dependency. In turn, her parents read this as confirmation that their daughter needs even more of their intervention to prepare her to cope at school.

While giving their very best to parenting, Sarah and Joe find themselves projecting worry and intensity onto their child. Maddie picks up on this and begins to slip backwards in her social development, acting as though life is too hard away from the comfort of her mother.

So what can be done to prevent this kind of worry cycle? You may be surprised to hear that not focusing on preparing children for the future can give them the space they need to take life day by day and grow from within through each new experience. Yes, parents still do the important practical work – visiting the school together, organising uniforms, and having the right gear ready. They answer their children’s questions when they arise, but they don’t spend much time talking about what school will be like.

Daily routines are kept familiar. Parents stay calmly present as they pack lunchboxes and take their children to their first day, without adding extra emotional weight to the transition.

One of the central paradoxes of parenting is that loving our children means staying grounded in the here and now, rather than over-preparing them for what might happen tomorrow.