I was folding laundry when my phone buzzed with a message from my son’s preschool teacher. My stomach dropped before I even read it. I knew. Mothers know.
“Hi, just a quick check-in. Leo had a tough morning. He hit a friend during circle time and then refused to sit for the story. He climbed on the shelf during transitions. We redirected him several times.”
I stood there holding a tiny sock, staring at the screen. My chest felt tight. My son. My sweet, fierce, hilarious three-and-a-half-year-old. The same kid who spent the weekend building train tracks and telling me I was his “best buddy in the whole wide world.” That kid was hitting. That kid was climbing shelves.
I felt a wave of sadness so sharp it surprised me. And underneath that, a quieter feeling I didn’t want to admit: shame. What was I doing wrong? Was he the only one? Why couldn’t he just sit still for ten minutes like the other kids?
The Shock of Seeing Your Child Struggle
Here is the thing nobody tells you about preschool. You send your child off with a little backpack and a lunchbox, and you think you are just dropping them off for some songs and snacks. But really, you are handing over a tiny piece of your heart to a room full of strangers, and you are waiting to see if it will be handled gently.
When the reports come back hard, it feels personal. It feels like a judgment on your parenting. On your child’s character. On everything.
I called my mom that night, voice shaking. “He hit someone, Mom. He climbed on a bookshelf.”
She was quiet for a second. Then she said something I will never forget. “He is not giving you a hard time. He is having a hard time.”
I had heard that phrase before. I had even said it to other parents. But hearing it about my own child, in that moment, it cracked something open in me.
Why Preschool Adjustment Struggles Look Different at School Than at Home
Here is the part that confused me the most. Leo was fine at home. He was fine at the park, at the grocery store, at Grandma’s house. He listened. He shared. He was a regular little human. So why was school such a mess?
I started paying closer attention. I watched him in the mornings before drop-off. I noticed his shoulders would get tight when I mentioned school. He would ask, “Will you stay with me, Mama?” in a voice that was a little too small.
And I realized something. At home, Leo is the big fish in a small pond. He knows the rules. He knows what to expect. He knows that I will catch him when he falls apart. But at school, he is a small fish in a much bigger pond. He has to share the teacher. He has to wait his turn. He has to follow directions from someone who is not me. And for a spirited, opinionated kid who likes to feel in control, that is terrifying.
Some preschoolers don’t hate school. They hate feeling powerless.
His hitting wasn’t aggression. It was communication. He didn’t have the words to say, “I am overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do with my body.” So his body took over. He hit because he couldn’t find another way to say no.
He climbed because sitting still felt impossible when his nervous system was screaming, I need to move.
The Morning That Changed How I Saw Everything
One Thursday morning, Leo woke up already on edge. He didn’t want the blue cup. He wanted the green cup, but then the green cup was wrong too. He cried when I put his shoes on the wrong feet, even though I put them on the right feet. He was looking for a fight. He was looking for a way to feel big in a world that kept asking him to be small.
I sat down on the floor next to him. I didn’t say, “Calm down” or “Use your words” or any of the things I usually say that don’t work. I just sat. After a minute, he crawled into my lap and put his head on my chest. I felt his little heart beating fast, like a bird’s.
“I don’t want to go to school,” he whispered.
“I know, buddy,” I said. “It’s hard to be away from Mama.”
He nodded against my shirt. And I thought, This is it. This is the real story. Not the hitting. Not the climbing. The heartbreak of leaving your person every single day and trying to be brave when you don’t feel brave at all.
Reframing the Behavior: What Your Preschooler Is Really Telling You
I started reading about preschool adjustment struggles, not from experts, but from other moms who had been through it. I read stories about kids who bit, kids who ran, kids who refused to participate. And slowly, I started to see Leo’s behavior differently.
What looked like defiance was often just dysregulation.
When a preschooler hits, it is not because they are bad. It is because their brain’s alarm system went off and their body reacted before their thinking brain could catch up. They are not choosing to misbehave. They are drowning, and hitting is the only way they know to gasp for air.
When a preschooler refuses to follow directions, it is not because they are stubborn (okay, maybe a little). But underneath that stubbornness is often fear. Fear of not knowing what comes next. Fear of doing it wrong. Fear of being told what to do by someone who is not their safe person.
I started telling myself a new story about Leo. Instead of “He is being difficult,” I told myself, “He is struggling to feel safe.” Instead of “Why can’t he just listen?” I told myself, “He needs more support to feel regulated.”
It didn’t fix everything overnight. But it changed how I showed up. I stopped bracing for bad news from the teacher. I started being curious instead of ashamed. I asked Leo questions like, “What was the hardest part of your day?” and “What helps you feel calm at school?”
He couldn’t always answer. But sometimes he would say something surprising, like, “I miss the green rug” or “Sam is too loud.” And I would file those little clues away, trying to piece together the puzzle of his experience.
The Days Nothing Works
I want to be honest with you. Some days, nothing works. You do all the right things. You get enough sleep. You offer a good breakfast. You read a calm book before school. You talk about feelings. You practice deep breaths. And still, you get the message at pickup: “He had a hard day.”
Those days, I want to cry in the car. Sometimes I do. I sit in the parking lot and let the tears come, because it hurts to see your child struggle and not be able to fix it. It hurts to feel like you are failing, even when you are trying so hard.
On those days, I try to remember that my job is not to make preschool easy for Leo. My job is to be his soft place to land when it is hard. My job is to hold him after a rough day and say, “I love you no matter what. Even when you hit. Even when you climb. Even when you can’t find your words.”
He doesn’t need me to fix his behavior. He needs me to see him.
And maybe that is what you need to hear too. Not a list of strategies. Not a promised solution. Just permission to feel sad about this, and permission to keep loving your kid exactly as they are, even when it is messy and hard and the teacher keeps sending messages.
What I Wish I Had Known from the Start
If I could go back to the first week of preschool, I would tell myself this: Your child is not broken. You are not broken. This is not a sign that something is wrong. This is a sign that your child is growing, and growing is hard.
Preschool adjustment struggles are normal. They are common. They are, dare I say, healthy. Because they mean your child is learning to navigate a world that does not revolve around them. And that is a skill that takes years to develop.
I would also tell myself to stop comparing. I used to watch the other kids line up neatly and feel a pang of envy. But I didn’t know their stories. I didn’t know if they had hard drop-offs too, or if they saved their big feelings for home. I only knew what I saw on the surface.
And I would tell myself to talk to the teacher more, not less. I was so embarrassed by Leo’s behavior that I avoided communication. But when I finally opened up, the teacher was kind. She said, “We see this all the time. He is not the only one. We will work with him.” That simple sentence lifted a weight I didn’t realize I was carrying.
Small Shifts That Made a Difference
I don’t want to pretend I figured it all out. But I did make a few small shifts that seemed to help Leo feel more settled at school.
I started asking his teacher for a picture of the classroom routine. We printed it out and hung it on the fridge. Every morning, we looked at it together and talked about what would happen. Circle time. Snack. Playground. Story. Pickup. Knowing the sequence helped Leo feel less anxious about the unknown.
I also stopped asking “Did you have a good day?” because that was too vague. Instead, I asked specific things: “What song did you sing at circle?” or “Who did you sit next to at snack?” Those questions invited him to share without pressure.
And I gave myself permission to have hard days too. I stopped pretending I had it all together. I told my husband, “I am struggling with this. I feel sad and worried.” And he held me and said, “Me too.” And that helped more than any parenting book ever could.
You Are Not Alone in This
If you are reading this and your preschooler is hitting, climbing, refusing, or falling apart at school, I see you. I know how lonely it feels to be the parent whose kid is “that kid.” I know how heavy the guilt is, and how loud the self-doubt can be.
But here is the truth I am learning, slowly, day by day. Your child is not giving you a hard time. They are having a hard time. And you are not failing them. You are walking beside them through one of the hardest transitions of their little life.
Some days will feel impossible. Some days will surprise you with a moment of connection so sweet it makes all the hard stuff worth it. And one day, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month, but one day, your child will walk into that classroom without looking back. And you will realize that all those messy, painful preschool adjustment struggles were not a sign of failure. They were the path.
What Helped Us Instead
For us, the biggest shift wasn’t a new technique or a reward chart. It was learning to watch Leo more closely–not to judge him, but to understand him. I started noticing patterns in his behavior that I had missed before. I saw that he was more likely to hit on days when he hadn’t had enough sleep, or when there was a change in routine. I started keeping a mental log of what triggered his hard moments, and I shared those observations with his teacher.
That simple act of watching, without trying to fix, changed everything. It turned me from a worried parent into a curious one. And curiosity, I found, is a much better guide than fear.
