Speaker 1: You might have heard that I was speaking about my
Speaker 1: daughter Lola, who's just started at a new daycare and
Speaker 1: she is having a truly horrible time transitioning to a
Speaker 1: new daycare. Not only is she having a hard time,
Speaker 1: but as a parent, I am having a horrible, horrible time.
Speaker 2: Because there's a parent's friend and business partner.
Speaker 1: Well, there's nothing worse as a parent leaving your child
Speaker 1: somewhere and having them be sad and cry for you.
Speaker 1: And with school coming up very soon, there's going to
Speaker 1: be a lot of parents across the country who are
Speaker 1: going to be dropping their kids off for school on
Speaker 1: the very first day. And we have Michelle Mitchell with
Speaker 1: us now. She is a child expert. With had her
Speaker 1: on the show many times and she's written an incredible
Speaker 1: book around building resilience in children. And the big question
Speaker 1: is is this resilience building or is it a time
Speaker 1: when a parent needs to swoop in and help them Michelle,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks for having me, Laura. And it's such a
Speaker 3: privilege to talk about your little four year old. I mean,
Speaker 3: aren't they so precious at this age?
Speaker 1: No, she's the best. You almost four county down to
Speaker 1: a birthday.
Speaker 2: Or Michelle, what do you think I mean, do you
Speaker 2: think this is relatively normal to be this excessively upset
Speaker 2: like all night after and all morning?
Speaker 3: It can be, Okay, it can be, and only Laura
Speaker 3: can really answer this. So if you'll step into my office, Laura,
Speaker 3: I have three questions for you. Will you answer these
Speaker 3: for me?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: I think the first question you want to ask yourself
Speaker 3: is how big does this feel for you? Because that's
Speaker 3: normally a mirror of how big that feels for our kids.
Speaker 3: So if our kids were leaving high school or leaving
Speaker 3: school or getting married, you know it would pull on
Speaker 3: our heart strings in exactly the same way. So let's
Speaker 3: not minimize it. Because there's three going on four. So
Speaker 3: how big does it feel for you? Give me a
Speaker 3: number between one and ten, being like I can't cope
Speaker 3: with this anymore.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's it's funny you say that, Michelle, because when
Speaker 1: we left, like I think any mum kind of knows
Speaker 1: that you become very close with the daycare or the
Speaker 1: place that your kids are at. And the last day
Speaker 1: that we had at her old daycare, I was in
Speaker 1: tea is because I didn't I don't want her to change.
Speaker 1: It was more a decision that Matt had made, and
Speaker 1: I think potentially she has seen how upset I have
Speaker 1: gotten over the process, and I probably haven't set her
Speaker 1: up for being I think we did everything right to
Speaker 1: start with. We were trying to be excited. But now
Speaker 1: if she's getting distressed, I'm getting more distressed about it,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's just escalating each other.
Speaker 3: So you would be almost better off vocalizing those things
Speaker 3: like I'm really missing your old daycare teachers right now?
Speaker 3: Are you missing them? Because I think you and your
Speaker 3: daughter are mirroring some of those feelings. So my next
Speaker 3: question for you would be in your gut and to
Speaker 3: the best of your knowledge, is she safe where she is?
Speaker 3: Does that kindy have checks and balances in place? And
Speaker 3: do you think it's a good place?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's no, it's a fantastic daycare, like it is
Speaker 1: a fantastic, fantastic school. I think I'm just so used
Speaker 1: to the familiarity that even for me, I was like,
Speaker 1: I hate change. Now she's so little and she has
Speaker 1: to go through that change herself.
Speaker 2: You do hate change.
Speaker 3: That's really easy to blame ourselves for everything. So we
Speaker 3: don't want to get too sort of like internally focused
Speaker 3: with it. And I talked grade one a long time ago,
Speaker 3: but I'd always say to parents, don't tell your kids
Speaker 3: that you are going to leave them now or drop
Speaker 3: them off. You aren't leaving them, You're not dropping them anywhere.
Speaker 3: You're actually deliberately intentionally transferring them to me. So you
Speaker 3: say something like your teachers are going to look after you. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be at work and I'm going to
Speaker 3: be right here at three o'clock.
Speaker 2: Michelle. The question is like Laura's trying to decide if
Speaker 2: she's stuck it out for a couple of weeks, now
Speaker 2: does she think is it going to change for Lola?
Speaker 2: Is she going to ease in eventually, or if she
Speaker 2: stood this upset after this couple of weeks, should Laura
Speaker 2: be taking her back to the old daycare.
Speaker 3: You can introduce some strategies like leave a heart in
Speaker 3: her pocket strategy. So let me tell you about this one.
Speaker 3: So when you drop her off, Laura, have a little
Speaker 3: red love heart piece of paper cut up and give
Speaker 3: it to her and say to her, sweet, I want
Speaker 3: you to put this in your pocket. And anytime you
Speaker 3: feel unsure or anytime you feel a little bit like
Speaker 3: you're missing mummy. I want you to put your heart
Speaker 3: and hand in your pocket, and I want to remember
Speaker 3: that I'll be thinking of you all day. But what
Speaker 3: that does is it gives your teacher a chance to
Speaker 3: loop into that. And so your teacher, if she knows
Speaker 3: your daughter's like feeling anxious, she didn't go to her
Speaker 3: and say, put your heart, hand in your pocket. Honey.
Speaker 3: What's your mommy doing right now thinking about you?
Speaker 1: Michelle wonderful? Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're going to try the hard thing before
Speaker 2: we pull her out.
Speaker 3: Laura.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna have to take over this now.
Speaker 3: Everyone.
Speaker 2: Laura just quit.
Speaker 1: Thanks for Laura quit. Like I said, it's something that
Speaker 1: so many parents go through. I think it's something that
Speaker 1: hits working parents particularly hard because you don't have an
Speaker 1: option and the whole you know, like maybe take them
Speaker 1: in later or pick them up earlier and make the
Speaker 1: days shorter, and it's like great, all that's great in theory,
Speaker 1: but when you have a job that you have to
Speaker 1: be out that doesn't allow you to do those things,
Speaker 1: you just feel like you're such a crap parent and
Speaker 1: you're not doing a good job. And it's it's really
Speaker 1: hard to navigate.
Speaker 2: You are doing a bloody good job.
Speaker 3: You are.
Speaker 1: Hopefully those kids turn out okay. A couple of years,
Speaker 1: we'll find out. Well, if anyone wants to get more
Speaker 1: of Michelle, she's written some incredible books, every Day Resilience Journal,
Speaker 1: and she sold it one hundred thousand copies worldwide. Put
Speaker 1: that off. This is so cute.
Speaker 2: Hey, you know someone else that's probably going to be
Speaker 2: crying pretty soon.
Speaker 1: The bride's on maths.
Speaker 2: It's that time of year again. It has kicked off
Speaker 2: last night, and I want to talk to you about
Speaker 2: one of the couples. What would you do if you
Speaker 2: got onto a show like that and you were paired
Speaker 2: with an X? Because that has happened, don't forget to
Speaker 2: head intochemist's warehouse and say more money every year on
Speaker 2: your regular medication and discounted prescriptions in every.
Speaker 1: Store every day. We're going to be talking about it
Speaker 1: next