You’re Kidding Me
The Parenting Through Stories team is one of mums with young children. We’re juggling toddlers, tea-time, and tantrums whilst holding afloat our work, sanity and passions - such as the Parenting Through Stories project.
Bartley’s Books, in essence, are for us.
The focus of the first in the series, ’Please Stay Here - I Want You Near’, is the anxiety caused by separation.
My youngest has just started nursery. The panicked monkey-like clamp on the arm, the terrible look of realisation at your imminent departure and the resultant, desperate, wail are all too recent memories.
My sympathies if you’re there, or approaching there. Whether it’s Granny’s house, a child-minder, pre or “big” school or nursery setting, leaving your kid is hard, even if they end up settling well.
From One, To Two…To Too Much Space Between You
A story which resonates more keenly now I have children, is one my mum tells of when I began school as a young four year old. When she asked what the best part of my day was, I would answer, ‘You picking me up, Mummy.’
She’d choke back the tears on our walk home.
Returning to work full time after a short six month maternity leave, in a sense she should have been ‘used’ to a separation. But of course, she wasn’t. And neither was I.
The first book we hope to be published, follows just such an adjustment: Bartley, the imaginative, playful bear and our ‘pawtagonist’, is off to school.
The trials of leaving the house - delaying tactics and tantrums - as well as reticence at the classroom door are explored. But, so too are strategies which help Bartley realise that he is safe, that separation anxiety is normal and manageable and that he is loved and his mum won’t be gone for long.
Reflect and Connect
Alongside beautiful pictures sit the series’ parenting super-powers, gleaned from Sarah’s experience as a Clinical Psychologist:
1. The narrative models strategies we can use, as parents, to navigate challenging times, such as separation
2. They help a child think about difficult things and difficult times in a safe context - and show that just as Bartley’s feelings and behaviours are normal, accepted and resolved, so too are their own
3. The very act of sharing story-telling time with the reflective dialogue Nudge the squirrel promotes ‘under the flaps’, strengthens the attachment relationship between parent and child (more on Nudge’s role in last week’s blog, which you can read here)
In short, the stories help everyone reflect on our own lives and connect through the attachment relationship they help foster.
Object of their Affection
One of Sarah’s top tips - more of which are included at the end of the picture-book and in greater detail in the Parenting Handbook - is to use a ‘transitional object’ to bridge the gap between home and care setting, between the familiar and less so.
My son has ‘Bun-Bun’: he’s a rabbit of dubious grey, possessing an often sticky coat and forever soggy, floppy, floral ears.
A Parent’s Story Too…
When I returned to full-time work after my first, it was my own anxiety that came in most forcefully and abated last.
I hated the separation, yet had no choice. I was beholden to a cycle of bills and debts to be paid: nursery fees, mortgage, student loan.
That I needed to work to pay a nursery bill my very absence generated, was a ridiculous serpent eating itself and begot an unexpected and vehement anger which frothed up and spilled out as I sped away from nursery, late once again.
Hard though it is, if we can check these emotions and present a confident and happy exterior in the lead up to and at drop-off, our little ones have a better chance of displaying equal confidence as they pass through those doors.
I think I found solace in the setting we chose for the boys: it’s a loving and playful environment which encourages exploration and offers adventure. I’m grateful every day for the smiles it generates.
But I know the best part of my day is picking them up.
On that note…see you next week.
Happy story-telling,
Becks
Editor and Blogger
Parenting Through Stories
@rebeccaritsonwrites
You can find out more about the series of Bartley’s Books, Parenting Through Stories and the Crowdfunder campaign to get them published by following us on Facebook here…
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