A Therapist Mom’s Guide to Gentle School Separations

September 10, 2026

A girl waves goodbye — Photo by Aflo images from (Aflo)

By Sarah Russell

As a Director of a children’s clinic and a practicing therapist, I have spent years educating parents on child development, including emotional regulation, attachment theory, and the intricacies of starting school. When my first child transitioned into preschool with the standard, predictable bouts of hesitation, I quietly patted myself on the back. We’ve got this sorted, I thought.

Then came my second son, Max. Max completely upended my professional confidence and rewrote many things I thought I knew about goodbyes and transitions. Unlike his older sibling, Max didn’t just experience the "usual" developmental separation anxiety; he experienced a deep, visceral distress that left us both heartbroken at the classroom door.

That painful season gave me a humbling reminder about the subtle, meaningful details of the separation process. While we are often well meaningly told to make goodbyes short, sharp, and abrupt, to "rip the Band-Aid off" and walk away while the child is distracted or crying, this experience reaffirmed that as a parent and a clinician, I don’t believe in painful goodbyes for children. Instead, my work as a professional and a parent is rooted in the evidence-based importance of a safety-first approach.

I believe it is our responsibility as parents to build a sense of deep respect for our children’s emotional wellbeing through predictability and individual attentiveness and responsiveness so our children feel truly seen and acknowledged.

When we cultivate this psychological and physiological safety, we start paving a secure internal compass within our children that eventually allows them to say goodbye with a little less trauma and a lot more ease.

The double standard of independence

I often reflect on the double standard between what we consider acceptable for adults versus what we expect from a child. As adults, we set ourselves up meticulously to feel secure. Hand on heart, I would feel petrified walking into a brand-new environment without a familiar, trusted person by my side to give me confidence.

Yet, we regularly deny this exact courtesy to our children. We drop them into highly stimulating environments with adults they barely know and expect instant independence, telling them to "be a big boy”. It is an incredibly massive task for a very little person with a still-developing body and brain.

Reality check: While we absolutely shoot for independence—focusing on whatever respectfully aligns as the “best fit” for each unique child—true independence is actually a by-product of deep dependence. A child can only confidently step away from us when they know, with absolute certainty, that they are truly safe and supported.

To support Max, we knew we didn’t align with compliance-based strategies. We didn't use sticker charts, presents, rewards for "not crying", or punishments for resisting. Instead, we focused on three intrinsically motivating, safety-centered strategies. Did this make the process easy? No. But did it feel inherently more respectful to my child? Absolutely. Here, I must deeply acknowledge our beautiful, family-run early years center for their incredible co-regulatory support alongside us. They felt like a real partner.

The three pillars of a secure goodbye

When a child is facing a separation that feels threatening, their nervous system perceives it as an actual danger or a threat. From a neurological standpoint, when the primitive brain shuts down or goes into survival mode (fight, flight, or freeze), the prefrontal cortex—the area responsible for logic, time orientation, and language processing—“switches off”. This means that when you stand at the door saying, "I will be back after lunch," your child cannot process those words. Instead you need to have created the structures for a goodbye before you actually say goodbye. Our goodbye was based on three pillars.

Pillar 1: Photo story book / visual schedule

Max needed to know what he was going to be doing at school and the exact sequence of his “goodbye”. This started at home with a visual schedule used on weekends and during quiet evenings. It became a natural, conversational fixture of our family life, not a tool rolled out only on stressful school mornings. We used photos of Max, which his preschool made into a little book, to create beautiful talking points at home: “Oh look at the turtles! What do you like to do when you visit them?” or, “Tell me more about the fun you have in the sandpit!”

Then, because children thrive on sequence, we created a similar schedule for our morning routine. Our schedule used simple photos detailing the steps of our morning and the exact steps of the goodbye sequence at preschool. Max knew precisely where we would say goodbye, how many hugs he would get, and what the goodbye would look and feel like.

Pillar 2: A champion adult

When we dropped Max off, I didn't want him handed over to just anyone who happened to be on morning duty. We intentionally partnered with his educators to establish a “Champion Adult”. A Champion Adult is a specific, trusted educator who actively steps into the role of the secondary attachment figure while you are gone. We worked closely with his teacher to ensure that when Max arrived, she was waiting for him.

This adult was someone Max felt deeply connected to, someone who could co-regulate with him when his system was overwhelmed. Putting my therapist hat on, I loved that his teacher supported activities that aligned perfectly with where his body and brain were in that moment. If he appeared more unsettled than usual, she would encourage "heavy work”—sensory input like digging in the sandpit, building with large, heavy wooden blocks, or pushing around a toy truck or digger—to help ground his nervous system.

Pillar 3: The "Open Arms" policy

Perhaps the most countercultural shift we made was implementing an Open Arms policy.

In a world obsessed with grit and forcing children to "tough it out," we decided that if Max was having an exceptionally bad day—if his nervous system was entirely blown out and the distress was too high—we would alter the plan. We called ahead to the school, we communicated openly, and we maintained a core philosophy: if it just doesn’t feel right, we are here to support you further.

This is not the same as enabling avoidance or giving up at the first sign of a tear. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that emotional thresholds fluctuate. Some days, due to poor sleep, an oncoming cold, or sensory overload, a child simply does not have the capacity to brave a separation. In practice, this meant:

We never forced him to just "push through."
If a drop-off was escalating into genuine panic or trauma, we paused, stepped back, and re-regulated together.
We let him know that his feelings were valid and that we were there to help him feel more comfortable.

These pillars allowed us to create the foundations of a secure goodbye that we were confident was the best way to help Max feel comfortable in his new school.

Progress isn’t linear

Ultimately, I had to hold onto patience and trust the process, knowing that so much of parenting is simply having faith that the pieces will eventually fall into place and comfort will follow.

Although Max still has some tearful goodbyes where he clings to our legs—because development is not linear—we have more days now where he whispers his “secret word” (dinosaur poo) that lets me know he is feeling safe and secure. On the harder days I remember that we all move in and out of comfort and insecurity, but the way we support children when their world feels fragile, always matters.

About the Author

Sarah Russell is a proud mother of two boys and the Director and Senior Consultant of Spring for Kids, a mobile children’s occupational therapy clinic specializing in school-based support and home visits. She leads a dedicated team providing neuroaffirming, attachment-focused care. To contact Sarah, please visit springforkids.com