Pick-up Time
Pick-up time is a time of transition, and transitions are always tricky for small children. Going from being in nursery to going home is a transition your child has to cope with every time. As adults we think, ‘What’s the problem? It’s the same every time. Collect her things, see she’s got everything, say goodbye to the staff and leave.’
But, as we all know, every day is different, for the staff, for the child, and for you, the parent, and the kind of day we’ve each had impacts on the way we handle the transition, whether we’re rushed, stressed, worried, happy or exhausted.
The staff try not to hurry the children when they’re getting ready to go home, and make sure they have all their things assembled and their outdoor clothes on. But children who have been happily busy all day may suddenly start crying when their parent appears. Why? Well, there’s a number of possible reasons: they may be tired at the end of the day, relieved to see their parent has actually come back to get them, or they genuinely don’t want to go home, or not yet at least. The parent says, ‘Has he been like this all day?’ And although the answer is always ‘no’, the floods of tears are genuine, but may also be part of how the child manages his parents.
A significant aspect of pick-up time is that it is a short time where who’s in charge becomes fuzzy. This is when the rules of behaviour in the nursery, which, for the most part, most of the children follow without difficulty most of the time, are giving way to home behaviour. Where there is a strong contrast between the two, children may respond by misbehaving. The response from parents can be to offer choices or bribes, or make threats, to force children who are reluctant to leave to get going, and they say things like, ‘Let’s go now. There’s some chocolate in the car for you’, ‘If you come now, would you like to go to the park or go shopping?’ or ‘If you don’t come now, I won’t buy you the toy you want.’
During the nursery day, if a child refuses to comply with a reasonable routine request, like putting the equipment she’s been working with back on the shelf when she’s finished, she can’t move on to something else until she’s done so, but we don’t bribe or threaten. We repeat the instruction in the same way, and just say that she needs to finish this before she goes on to do the next thing. Children who are used to throwing tantrums to get their own way at home will try that, but it doesn’t work at nursery! And once they realise tantrums don’t work, they stop using them as a tool to get what they want.
You’re eager to know what your child’s been doing all day, but asking her in the midst of the departure is not the best time. The question, ‘What did you do today?’ is so general, so abstract, and, in the child’s hazy perception of time, covers such a long period, that getting an informative answer is unlikely. Being interrogated may make your child feel anxious if she can’t answer you on the spot. And pick-up is not the time to have an in-depth discussion with a staff member about your child’s activities during the day either. Any exchange of information has to be brief, because the focus needs to be on the child making a smooth transition from nursery to home.
Later, at home, she may come out with all sorts of information about her day, which you can pick up on and explore with her. You can also arrange to phone Seedlings to discuss her activities and progress, or arrange a face to face meeting with her key person, or the manager, if you have any concerns.
So, pick-up time is more likely to be smooth and happy if:
- It’s not rushed
- It doesn’t get slowed down by negotiations with your child or conversations with staff
- If you don’t interrogate your child about her day, but listen out for the information she may volunteer later.
