I went through this right before Christmas. My DCG got sick and missed a couple of days and when dad brought her in he was coddling her and wouldn't let her go. She obviously took this as a sign to not trust being here and everytime he dropped her off after that the tantrum escalated. This was a girl who didn't have any transition issues when she first started and would sometimes not want to go home!!

I basically told the parents that drop off needed to be short and sweet. Place her inside the door, say goodbye and leave. No matter what, just leave. When she started tantrumming and rolling all around and hitting her head off the floor I just ignored it until she was calm. when she was calm I engaged her, took off her coat and we then went down to the playroom. I didn't acknowledge the tantrum or comfort her in that state. She would recover around 5 minutes after they left if I ignored. This lasted 3 days and now she happily comes to daycare again and is even excited when they pull into my driveway according to the parents.

Kids feed off parental anxiety and the longer the goodbye is in the morning the more they "sense" something is wrong. I think the parents are feeling anxiety at drop off for some reason and that needs to be nipped in the bud.

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