Dr. Sylvia Rimm
Maggie and her son Sean are experiencing two difficult changes simultaneously that put extra stress on both of them. Maggie assumes she is helping Sean by emphasizing to him that they are both experiencing the difficulty and by making these changes together. While it is all right for Maggie to explain that she, too, feels some stress, because it allows Sean to admit to his own stress, it's important to Sean to believe that his mother can take care of him not as a partner but as a mother. The togetherness that she suggests will actually cause him to either feel he is expected to act like an adult or to assume that mother won't be able to handle him alone. The emphasis on "just you and me" only makes Sean feel lonelier and more vulnerable. Sean will feel more secure if Maggie reassures him that she can take care of things instead of assuming they are in a partnership.

Maggie's reminder to Sean of his first day at preschool was a good one, but she could have emphasized to him that it was easy after the first day and that it will be easier after his first day at the new school as well.

Other things Maggie could have done to make Sean's first day easier was to have taken him to school the previous day to meet his new teacher. She may have been able to make arrangements with the teacher about what he could bring to class to talk about and could've perhaps learned the name of another child to meet before school started so that Sean would know someone in the school. The familiarity with one friend makes it easier for a child to adjust to a new school environment.

In her discussion with the teacher Maggie could have asked what games the children play or what they were learning. All that would have helped to make Sean's new environment more familiar. Unless the school preferred that Maggie not take Sean to the classroom, it would have been a good idea to walk him directly there the first day. The promise to pick him up as Maggie walked away seemed more to help her with her guilt than to reassure Sean, who undoubtedly didn't even hear them through his cries. Maggie's descriptions of how hard she worked to get them there will either fall on deaf ears or will only cause Sean to feel more anxious, but her promise that he will be okay was appropriate and optimistic, as it should be.
Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is a child psychologist, a clinical professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the author of many books on parenting. She appears weekly on her own radio show, Family Talk With Sylvia Rimm, and appears monthly on the NBC Today Show.