My oldest, LeLe, started Kindergarten in early September. We were lucky to be a part of a prep program called Kindy Academy that is offered in our district. This meant that in August, LeLe attended a practice round of kindergarten for three weeks. She was able to ride the bus to and from school each day, and the days were only half days. She had an absolute blast and was pumped to start kindergarten for real. Fast forward to the first weeks of kindy and we were in a whole different mind set.

The first day went great. We dropped her off, I cried, she was overjoyed to be in her school with her teacher and her friends. She came home happy and excited to go back the next day. So the next morning, we decided she would take the bus to school and home from school. We waited out at our bus stop and when the bus stopped there, we sent her on her way. About 30 minutes later, I get a phone call from the front office at her school saying that LeLe got on the wrong bus and went to the wrong school. She said she was fine and another bus brought her to the right school. She also said that LeLe remained calm throughout the whole ordeal. When LeLe got home, I told her repeatedly how proud I was of her and how amazed I was that she was able to handle the whole situation. She didn’t really want to talk about it, but decided that she didn’t want to take the bus anymore in the mornings.

I spent the rest of the day battling serious mommy guilt because I had put her on the wrong bus. I decided to explore why the bus from another school was stopping at our bus stop and discovered that the driver was never supposed to stop at that stop. This made me furious and I wanted to immediately call the busing company to yell at someone, but I didn’t think that this would be a good idea. Instead, I contacted the wonderful woman who worked at the other school that stayed with my daughter and comforted her until the other bus came to pick her up to thank her.

Fast forward to two days later and LeLe threw up on the bus in the afternoon before it even left the school. She told me then that she worried all day long about having to ride the bus and she got so worked up that afternoon that she vomited. The thing that actually set her off was that the bus number was different on Fridays than it was the rest of the week, so she was convinced that she was on the wrong bus. On Monday morning, I drove her to school and when we got there, she started saying she didn’t feel good and proceeded to throw up. I sent her to class and while there she told her teacher, who emailed me to find out what was going on. I explained the situation and her teacher was amazing!

LeLe was connected with the school counselor and she was given a pass to go see her whenever she wanted. She was also assigned a bus buddy that got off one stop before her on the route. This meant that this other young girl, E, would wait for LeLe after school each day and sit with her on the bus. The new bus driver is a retired children’s therapist, so the school let her know about LeLe’s anxiety, and she came up with a whole plan that she would have a “bus dog” that one of the riders needed to watch over during the ride. LeLe was given the bus dog when she got on the bus and was able to focus on that instead of worrying about getting to the right stop. I also have a close friend that works at the school and was able to keep an eye on LeLe during the day and let me know if anything was going on that could trigger her anxiety.

It’s been about a month now since the bus situation happened and LeLe is doing great. She looks forward to school everyday, and her anxiety seems to be much more under control. She is going to a counselor as well and that has seemed to help her quite a bit. That much change in a little person’s life can cause huge issues and I was not prepared at all. I was totally confident that LeLe would rock kindergarten and have no issues with the transition. I was completely overwhelmed and at a loss as to how to handle this situation, so I reached out to the boards here on Hellobee. Sooo many of you helped me with great suggestions and ways to help LeLe deal with this situation. I feel so lucky to have this group of moms (and dads) on the forums here that can provide excellent experience and suggestions to a problem that I had no idea how to deal with.