Crying in the School Supplies Aisle (A Love Letter to the Anxious Kindergarten Mom)

Written by Dr. Colleen Reichmann, psychologist and clinical director of Wildflower Therapy

“Not the red scissors- I want the BLUE ONES!” MY stomach tenses as I watch my five-year old’s face crumple. Tears spill out almost instantaneously and a long wail begins. In a flash, he jumps off of the shopping cart, grabs the package with the plastic scissors out of my hands, and throws it to the floor.

“What if his teacher gives him the wrong color scissors at school and he acts like this?” The thought comes to me in a split second, and before I even realize it, my face crumples too. And then, just like that, we are both crying in the Wegmans school supply aisle. Ah the picture of mother-son kindergarten readiness.

If you are also the parent of a child starting kindergarten in t-minus one month-I am guessing you get me. (Consider this our little judgement-free zone, ok?) I invite you to read on for some more camaraderie. (And hope! There is hope here too I promise.)

Pandemic Babies Are Heading to Kindergarten (and Everyone Is a Little Shaky)

Ah, kindergarten. Land of little Pottery Barn name-engraved backpacks, blunt scissors, and construction paper masterpieces. It feels like a time that we are supposed to view with misty eyes-a sweet, if slightly bittersweet, milestone that means your baby is growing up. But for many of us, it can feel like standing on the edge of a cliff while everyone yells, “Jump! They’re ready!” and you’re clutching your child thinking, “But... are they?! Am I?!”

This year’s batch of kindergarteners is a VERY unique bunch. Many were born in 2019 or 2020, right as the world turned upside down. Their earliest memories (if they were able to access them) would involve masks, hours upon hours of time at home with parents and no one else, and the voices of new station anchors in the background, detailing scary, bleak statistics. Their baby and toddler years didn’t exactly follow the usual tracks. And our experience of parenting them didn’t follow the normal tracks either. In fact, there is a very unique grief here for many pandemic parents. In many ways, we lost specific aspects of their first few years- aspects that a lot of us had long looked forward to. And now? It feels sort of like we blinked- the world moved on (only leaving behind whispers of the collective trauma we all endured), and our kids are now 4 and 5 years old- certainly not babies, no longer even toddlers- but…big kids?

“Are they ready?” We wonder. “Did their first year that was spent tucked away from the entire world impact their social development like people online were predicting it would? Did we do enough to prepare them?”

I do take comfort in the fact that these worries tend to be something all parents of kindergarteners appear to grapple with- whether they were born during the height of the pandemic or not. In other words, if I wasn’t obsessing over the impact of social distancing during the first year of life, I would be worried about the impact of a sibling behind born. Of a developmental delay. Of general sociopolitical unrest. Concerns over kids being ready for school feel very universal, and are, in part, just a manifestation of how much we love them, and how our minds tend to search out control during seasons when we are asked to give some of it up.

The Myth of the Perfectly Ready Kindergartener

And if we are being totally blunt, the “kindergarten readiness” industrial complex has gotten a little out of hand, hasn’t it? Let’s talk about this idea of “readiness,” because it’s gotten so much airtime in recent years, and really does leave parents vulnerable to obsession and self-doubt.

“Readiness” is a spectrum. A beautiful, incredibly vast spectrum. Some kids stride into school with confidence, asking where they can hang their Paw Patrol lunchbox. Others cry (and cry), and hold onto your leg like it’s a life raft. Some nervously ask question after question about which snacks you packed.

Some kids take to fine motor activities early on, and so they come in writing their names. Others are gross-motor enthusiasts who view having to do a craft as a disciplinary measure (hi it’s my son.) And, they will work on learning to write their name as the year marches on. Some can count, others will develop this skill. All of these kids are “ready” for Kindergarten. Kindergarten readiness, in my opinion, should simply mean that they ready to embark on a season of growth. In fact, the word "Kindergarten" literally means "children's garden" in German. The “readiness” of it all really comes down to a child who is embarking on a season of a growth. They are “ready” for the growth that is about to happen this year.

Why It Feels So Much Bigger Than "Just Kindergarten"

If you're feeling overwhelmed, please know that that is beyond understandable. It’s not just about school. Kindergarten marks the end of an era. For many moms, this is the first major separation after five-ish years of being, well, everything (snack-provider, boo-boo-kisser, 3 a.m. existential question answerer, etc.) Even if your child has been in daycare or preschool, there’s something about public school that feels… official. Like someone stamped a file and declared, “Time to grow up.”

And for parents who gave birth right before or during the COVID-19 pandemic, this transition feels especially intense. You were robbed of the typical early parenting experience. There were no crowded baby music classes, no stroller meetups, no leaning on the collective wisdom of playground strangers. You were in survival mode. You made banana bread, worked on getting your two-year-old to tolerate a mask, and taught them to wash their hands like a surgeon. You navigated every scary headline while pretending everything was okay. So, if it feels like time moved particularly fast, please know that this makes SO much sense for this very unique parenting experience that you have had. When people say, “blink and you miss it,” please know that it is ok if it feels especially loaded for you. Because, for the parents that got their start when the world stopped spinning, time has been…weird. Fast and slow. Terrifying, mundane, and blurry. And now, the world expects you to just watch your child- that baby, who you spent every waking moment protecting (throughout the height of the pandemic and beyond)- get onto a bus without you? And you’re supposed to just…go back inside and go about your day? Absolutely ludicrous.

Anxiety Loves a Milestone

AND, even aside from all the pandemic layers- transitions tend to light up “what if” fears. They just do. So maybe kindergarten doesn’t just mean kindergarten, ya know? For people prone to anxiety, kindergarten can feel like:

• “Am I doing enough as a mom?”

• “Did I miss something important during these chaotic early years?”

• “What if my child doesn’t do well academically?

• “What if he struggles socially?”

• “What if my child feels scared and alone?”

• “What if she hates school?”

• “What if I suck at this next stage of parenting…maybe I’m only good at being a baby mom?”

So, let’s take a breath here. Yes ( I am talking to myself just as much as anyone else.)

Your worth as a mom is not determined by your child’s ability to zip their jacket or recite the alphabet in order. And five-year-olds are still very new people. They will have big feelings, act impulsively, and generally struggle with the development of certain skills. Making friends might be a whole journey for them. AND- so much of how this all plays out relates back to temperament and neurotype, vs any parenting move you have or have not made.

Elementary school is not the parenting Olympics. In fact, acting as if they are all just reflections of our parenting feels like an incredibly small, reductive view. They are unique, multifaceted humans, with their own struggles and skillsets- and we are learning how best to support them while also figuring out how to do this parenting thing *at the same time.* This next year will be a year of immense growth for most of them- and some struggles are to be expected. But the best thing we can do is try to remove how much we believe any of this is a report card for parenting, and move into acceptance and readiness to equip them for each hurdle. In other words, help them bloom as best we can, with the understanding that we simply do not have all that much control at the end of the day. (I know. Totally easy to accept, right?)

How to Cope With Kindergarten Anxiety as a Mom

Here are a few things that have actually been helping me to stay grounded (says the woman who was just crying alongside of her five-year-old in the school supplies aisle…)

1. Normalize the Feeling

It’s okay to feel sad, proud, worried, excited, or all of the above. It makes sense. Mixed emotions are a sign of how transitional this period feels. We are sifting through many different layers- grief about how different our parenting journey has been than we expected. Sadness to be out of the baby/toddler stage. Fears about what is to come. It is all allowed, and mostly it’s all just more of an indication of how very much we just love these small humans, ya know?

2. Zoom Out

Kindergarten is one moment in a long parenting journey. It’s a big moment, but it’s still just one moment. There will be other milestones. There is so much growth to come.

3. Limit the “Readiness” Rabbit Hole

You don’t need 14 Pinterest boards or a pre-K tutor. Your child is ready enough. Let them be little. Let them be themselves.

4. Touch Some Grass

Has anyone else been inundated on social media with reels of toddlers, set to melancholic music, with text overlay that reads something along the lines of “Sometimes I remember that this isn’t forever and I get sick to my stomach.” Or slo-mo reels of a child running, with captions about how the summer before kindergarten is the last summer of being *really* little? Are they messing with your head too? Ok. Cool. So, I’m going to hold both of our hands when I say: it’s time to log off social media and go touch some grass. Kindergarten is still SO young. We have so many years of parenting ahead of us. There are many adorable moments to come. They aren’t going off to college. If this type of rhetoric is starting to feel unhelpful, let’s make the choice together to tune some of it out, and try our best to live in the here and now.

5. Phone a Friend (or a Therapist)

Talking helps. That might mean texting your mom group, laughing and crying together with a fellow kindergarten parent, or booking a session with a therapist who gets it ( Hi, we’re a therapy practice right here in Philadelphia!)

6. Have a Plan for Drop-Off (and the Aftermath)

Yes, your child might cry. You might cry. So, try to plan ahead. Give yourself some time to come down from how intense it will feel. Consider a little ritual for you—a latte, a solo stroll after drop off, a cry in your car with some music- There’s no wrong way to process.

If This Is Hitting Hard, Please Please Know That You’re Not Broken

And hey- let’s not ignore the possibility that maybe this transition is triggering deeper stuff. Maybe you're suddenly thinking about your childhood. Or maybe you’re realizing how much of your identity has been wrapped up in being needed-in being the young mom with a baby on her hip. Maybe it’s bringing up old feelings of mourning related to your reproductive trauma, or the enormous fertility-related grief of not having had the choice in how many children you were able to have-of watching this season wrap up earlier than you would have chosen. That’s valid. These important struggles are things that parenting transitions tend to bring to the surface. And sometimes just naming that it is happening can help ease the pain a bit.

Final Thoughts (From Your Fellow Shaky Kindergarten Mom)

To the moms feeling like it’s absolutely gutting to think about their literal heart walking into a school on his own (in little Velcro shoes, no less): your love is so fierce, and it’s so beautiful.

To the moms who are second-guessing everything because your child can’t yet write her name: It’s going to be okay. She can’t write it-yet. Parenting is just an entire journey of yet (or so I am learning!)

To the moms who are excited for this next season while also mourning the baby days- who are experiencing that weird feeling of relief folded into grief- I see you.

To the moms who are feeling like this is just bringing up so much- whether it is delayed pandemic processing, memories from when you were this age, or emotions generally tied to your fertility and early parenting journey- it is ok to feel it all. You are not being dramatic.

Let’s all remember-This moment is big. And, it is only a moment- the start of a next chapter. In a book that will have so many more chapters.

Ready to talk?

At Wildflower Therapy, we’re here for you. Whether you’re preparing for the first day of school, navigating maternal identity shifts, or simply feeling overwhelmed, our maternal mental health specialists are here to help. We’d be honored to walk with you through this wild, wonderful kindergarten chapter-and whatever comes next.

Located in Philadelphia (in-person therapy availabe at our office!) And virtual therapy for anyone residing in PA, VA, DE, NJ, OH, MA, VT, FL, and SC!

Learn more about us here, or schedule your free consultation call here.

Because you deserve care, too.