Why is my daughter scared of the school dining hall?

Q. My daughter has never been confident in large groups, and has recently started school. She has over the last couple of days started crying when she goes for her dinner – going into a hall where there are a lot of other school children also having dinner. She openly tells me she cries and this it is because there are a lot of other children there. Is there anything I can do to help her get through this? Or is it just something she is going to have to get used to?

A. Starting a new school can be a nerve wracking time for anyone. There is so much to do, people to get to know, routines that need to be followed, a new building to navigate. It is very daunting.

It sounds as if your daughter has settled well into her new class, but finds the volume of pupils in the school dining hall noisy and overwhelming. School dining halls are noisy places and some schools do keep the reception and nursery pupils separate from the others.

I would suggest that you make an appointment with your daughter’s teacher and find out what they are doing to manage the situation and if they share the same concerns as you. I wonder whether your daughter is also aware that by reporting to you that she is anxious and cries, whether she is eliciting a response from you. Children do often know what it is that makes their parents upset and it may possibly be attention seeking behaviour.

If you are able to understand what she’s worried about it will help to find a solution – some strategies you could try include the following:

• Talk to your daughter about why she is upset – make sure you validate her concerns, agreeing with her that it is a very scary/difficult transition – ensure she knows that she is not silly for being scared.
• Speak to the teacher and find out if her class can go into the lunch room first for a couple of weeks so that it is not so noisy when she arrives. She can settle in and get her food before the noise kicks in.
• She might be feeling anxious about dropping her tray or making some other kind of mistake and all of the other children seeing her. Try to talk to her and empathise about how this would be embarrassing – she will probably start talking and realise it’s not as scary as she thought.
• Check that it isn’t the food itself that she doesn’t like or that she’s too hungry and needs a snack in the morning or a bigger breakfast.
• She may feel overwhelmed by all of the choices in the lunch line, not knowing the lunch ladies or not understanding/hearing what they’re saying – which means she’s afraid to speak up. Maybe the teacher could take the whole class to meet the lunch ladies so that the kids feel more comfortable with them – maybe they could even have a look around at how the kitchen works.