As some of you may know, we are moving to Australia towards the end of the year and this will entail Rowan and Reuben going to school.

Here, Rowan (5) is home educated.  We do schooly stuff at home, just me and him and we meet up with other home edders every week.  He also does swimming and rock climbing.
Reuben (3) goes to nursery 2 days a week and LOVES it!  I have no worries about Reuben.

Rowan went to a preschool and really didn’t like it unless his freind was there, so we decided it wasn’t worth the turmoil for him at such a young age.  Home Ed is working really well, but, financially, is not an option over there.

The other night Rowan asked if I would be staying at school with him in Aus and when I said no, he started to worry.  To be fair he is unwell at the mo and tends to worry a lot anyway, but I really don’t want this to snowball into something really big.  We don’t move until September and they won’t start school till the end of Jan next year.  Thats a long time for a worrier to worry!

I know that it won’t be easy for him and I am not sure if they do anything like flexi over there (its hard enough to get it here!), so did/does anyones kids get upset at starting school?  How did you deal with it?  Any tips?

Maybe he shouldn’t know so early, but we don’t have secrets in our house and it is a main topic of conversation here at the mo!

No advise, hun.  Just sympathies over mummy worries too.
Its’ a big transition..although, I thought formal education didn’t start until 7 in Australia?  One of our members was Australian and the main reason she was home edding is that she thought 4/5yrs was too young for school.

Er or she might have been from New Zealand… heck can’t rememer now.. she became pregnant with her second child and they decided to try sschool out for their son afterall, which I assume is going well.

My sister is in Oz, her son is an October 2006 baby and just started school last week so 5 and a quarter, her daughter who is an August baby won’t start till she is 5 and a half, so it only seems like about a year’s/ year and a half’s difference to UK.  I am a worrier so for me as a worrier I like to know exactly how it is going to be.  So I am fully prepared for a situation. With my children I found that telling them things in advance had made them very very excited about whatever that is, in a can’t wait, don’t want to wait way.  And if for any reason that friend or family member who was coming couldn’t come, the disappointment was too much to bear.  This has meant that my approach has been to keep things from them till the last minute, or to keep any build up very low key, so I obviously did a bit of a build up to school, but all framed positively (in a celebrating being bigger kind of way)  which of course led to lots of regressive baby behaviour!!!!  Of course when I write it, I question whether this is right or not, but I think they are more laid back than me so it works.  I know that as a kid I used to sit on the steps and refuse to go, perhaps that is because I needed to ‘know’ more about how it (whatever it was) would work.

No real advice, hopefully you can find some way to stem the worries, one of my daughters friends is a worrier and it takes her time to get used to some things or try things.

Just to say though that part-time school is an option in Australia but like here I guess it is down to each school. I have family in Oz and NZ who have at times flexi-schooled, HE’d and schooled. It would be worth finding out about local schools to where you are moving to, to see if there is that opton available to you.

What sort of things do you do with him to relieve worries about other things? (assuming he has in the past where you say he’s a worrier anyway). Maybe get him thinking about all the good things about moving for now, so school is not really top of his thoughts as it is still a long while off.

As you say a year (almost) is a long time and so much can change in their heads in that time, hope the transition is smooth.