Mummy, I’ve got no friends…

Were the words I was hoping not to hear.

The Wee Man has left behind all his friends he has ever known, and started a whole new world of preschool. It doesn’t fit in with his previous swimming lessons, it doesn’t fit in with his old nursery, it doesn’t fit in with his previous preschool…and so he’s moved from a world inhabited by friends he has grown up with, and known since he was 5 weeks old to instead being a part of a new world where he doesn’t know his peers and he doesn’t know his carers (apart from his Grandma, who is now picking him up from preschool two afternoons a week and seems to have got the best part of the deal so far since she’s usually welcomed with a smile).

With the Wee Man being a sociable and friendly three year old, I was hopeful that he wouldn’t find the transition too difficult. And at first, things seemed to be going ok – his new childminder reported that he jabbered away happily all morning, and he happily ran off to play at his new preschool induction with little care about where mummy might be.

But now things have changed, and the Wee Man has gone from being generally happy to being a tired, clingy, grumpy three year old that is liable to have a meltdown at any given minute.

‘The other children won’t share’ he reported to me sadly. ‘And XXX told me she ISN’T my friend’. The indignation with which he made this remark caused my heart almost to break in two as I looked down at his forlorn little face.

I know there are some things he recounts that simply aren’t true. Its clear for instance that when he tells me for the fourth day running that preschool fed him ‘cake and jacket potato’ for lunch, that it’s extremely unlikely to be the case. And his teacher assures me that he does play happily with the other children while he is in her care. But it’s clear that he is feeling lonely and afraid and I’m left feeling like the worst mother in the world when I have to go to work and leave him looking at me reproachfully, or when I drag him to preschool myself while he kicks and screams and tells me he doesn’t want to go in.

Of course, preschool is not compulsory – but then I can’t help thinking that if we remove him from preschool now we’ll just be in this situation again in a few months time when the Wee Man starts school still not knowing any other little people locally. And we’ll also be teaching him that if he’s in a situation he doesn’t like, he can just give up.

Onwards into a new world of preschool for the Wee Man, and onwards into a new world of parenting for us.

So if anyone has any tips to help us along the way, they’d be most appreciated!