How to Ease First Day Jitters, for Them and for You

The night before her first day of first grade, my daughter came out of her room at 9:40 and told me she was not tired. She was extremely tired. What she actually was, was scared, and she did not have a word for it yet, so it came out as not tired.

That is the thing nobody warns you about with first day jitters. They almost never announce themselves. They show up as a stomachache, or sudden rage about a sock, or a kid who has been potty trained for two years having an accident. And then there is your own version, which is quieter and tends to show up around 11pm.

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What jitters actually look like

If you are waiting for your kid to say I am nervous about school, you might be waiting a while. Here is what it looked like in our house instead.

• A stomachache with no fever, usually right after dinner.
• Suddenly needing me in the room to fall asleep, after months of not needing that.
• Enormous feelings about tiny things. The wrong cup. A tag. A sibling breathing.
• Regression, which for us meant baby talk and wanting to be carried.
• Getting extra silly and loud. This one surprised me. I read it as misbehavior for years before I understood it was nerves with the volume turned up.
• Asking the same question over and over, like what if I cannot find the bathroom, even after I answered it four times.

The question repetition is the one I got wrong the longest. I kept answering it better, with more detail, thinking a good enough answer would end it. It does not work that way. They are not looking for information, they are checking whether you are still calm.

The week before, three things that actually help

Go see the building. Not on a tour day, just on a random Saturday. We walk the route or drive it, park, and play on the playground for twenty minutes. It turns an unknown place into a place where they already have a memory. This is the single highest value thing we do, and it takes half an hour.

Start moving bedtime earlier before you need it. Fifteen minutes at a time, about a week and a half out. A tired kid has zero buffer for a new thing, and jitters and exhaustion are almost impossible to tell apart from the outside. A blackout curtain helps a lot when you are moving bedtime earlier in August.

Name the feeling out loud first, before they have to. I say something like, you know what, I get a little wobbly before new things too. My stomach does a weird thing. That gives them the word and, more importantly, gives them permission. Kids often think the nervous feeling means something is wrong with them.

Things I stopped saying

These all came from a good place. They all made it worse.

You are going to have so much fun. This is a promise you cannot keep, and if day one is mediocre, which many day ones are, now you were wrong and they cannot trust your read on things.

There is nothing to be scared of. This argues with the feeling. The feeling does not care about your argument, and now they are nervous and also feel silly for being nervous.

I am going to miss you so much. I said this one constantly. It sounds loving and it is, but it hands your kid your feeling to carry into a building where they already have plenty to carry.

Do not cry, you are a big kid now. I heard myself say a version of this once and I still think about it.

What I say instead

These are close to word for word, because having actual sentences ready is the only reason I do not improvise something unhelpful at 7:40am.

It makes sense to feel wobbly about a brand new thing. That feeling means it matters to you.

You do not have to feel excited. You just have to go. Excited is not the entry fee.

Here is what I know for sure. Then I list concrete facts. Mrs. Nguyen will be at the door. Your backpack is blue so you will find it. Lunch is at 11:30. I will be in the same spot in the pickup line. Certainty about small logistics does more than any pep talk.

Your job today is just to find one kind face. Not make a best friend. One kind face. That goal is achievable, which is the entire point.

The ninety second goodbye

Long goodbyes make it worse. I know that in my head and my body still wants to hover.

Our version is a hug, one specific sentence about pickup, a squeeze of the hand, and then I turn and walk. The specific sentence matters. Not see you later, but I will be right here at 3:15 by the blue doors. Then I go, even if her face is doing the thing.

The first year I did this I got to my car and cried for ten minutes with the engine off. Then I picked her up and she talked about a lizard the whole way home and had no memory of the morning at all. They recover roughly nine times faster than we do. That is not a reason to feel bad about crying, by the way. I fully expect to cry at every single drop off this fall, partly because I am pregnant and currently crying at commercials.

The lunchbox note, honestly

I want to be real about this one because it gets a lot of hype. For one of my kids, a little note in the lunchbox is a genuine anchor and she saves them in a drawer. For my other kid, it made him sad in the middle of the day and pulled him out of the flow he had finally found. So he does not get notes, and that is not a failure of sentiment, it is just information about who he is.

If you try a note and pickup is worse than usual, that might be why. Try a small object instead, a rock from the yard in his pocket, something he can touch without an emotional prompt attached.

What flopped for us

The paper countdown chain. We made one and it turned every single day into a reminder that the scary thing was closer. My daughter got quieter with each link. We took it down on day four.

Over preparing. I once walked my son through the entire school day in detail, including specials rotation and dismissal procedure, because I thought information would help. It gave him nine new things to worry about that he had not thought of on his own. Now I answer the questions he asks and stop there.

The big elaborate first day breakfast. Nerves and a full stomach of pancakes do not mix. We had a rough car ride and a near incident. Now day one breakfast is small and familiar and boring.

The part I am still working on

My own jitters are the piece I have the least handle on. I am the one lying awake wondering if the teacher will get her sense of humor, if anyone will sit with her, if I signed the right form. That worry is love with nowhere useful to go.

What helps me is having one thing scheduled for right after drop off. A walk. Coffee with a friend. Something that is not going home to an unusually quiet house and refreshing my email. That is it. That is my whole strategy, and it works better than anything I have tried.

Before you go

Your kid does not need to feel confident on the first day. They need to feel like you are steady. Those are very different jobs, and the second one is the one you can actually do.

If you are heading into a first day soon, tell me about it in the comments. First timer or fifth timer, I want to hear. And if you have a script that works on a kid who goes silent instead of loud, please share it, because I could use it.

xo, Pam