It’s that time again – Biggest transition in Early Years!

This time of year brings back many memories, not all of them good.

Picking these beautiful gems of berries produces memories of our summer holidays coming to an end! With this brings recollections of the stress of shoe buying in Clarks. Not sure who was more stressed, my mother or me with her showing me all the shoes I could have when all I wanted was the ones with flashing lights!

Simples really.

That would have made me very happy instead of the shoes which represented the Clarks style! Oh, how I hated them.

Alongside those memories are definitely the ones of a new pencil case, with pens and pencils and if I was lucky pencils with my name printed on them. Why that made me happy I do not know but they fitted perfectly in my new bag too! Oh, the joys of a new bag which fitted all my new ‘Stuff’ in just perfectly. I still relish a new bag now!

Now I feel such sadness that not every child had the luxury of what I had every new Autumn Term. Remembering your parents saying to you should be grateful and not truly knowing what that meant until my latter years. Shame on me.

Then if I went further into reminiscing one of my earliest memories was my first day at school. Yes, I do remember that far back! It was just the most awful experience of being left by my mother in the very large school hall full of children and when I mean full I mean full. The sea of heads was just so overwhelming that I cried.

I broke my heart.

I became inconsolable with being left and not knowing why.

I do not remember settling in sessions at my school. I do not remember it being explained to me that I had to go to school.

All I remember is being left and my mother not looking back- she kept on walking.

Why was I being left? What had I done wrong?

Those feelings of anxiety still sit with me now in the back of my throat and the tension in my stomach. I still do not like big crowds. I still feel anxious about walking into a room full of strangers. I’m sure if the experience I had had earlier in my younger years I would relish the chance to enter into a room with new people.

Please let us think about those tiny acorns who we so want them to grow into big oak trees…. Let’s make those transitions enjoyable and comforting ones, not ones that make anxiety and stress hit on the highest level and cause memories to be sad ones.

Vanessa