Graham has often struggled with daycare drop-off. Most days he’s completely fine at daycare, but it’s very hard for him to say goodbye at drop-off. Long hugs, tears, reaching for Daddy or Mommy, pleas to go home. But this week I’ve discovered that the trick may be how we get there.

Graham has always loved the bus and the train, and lately our routine for getting to daycare in the morning has often involved taking the bus instead of driving or biking, our other two common modes. He has also, in the last few months, become very comfortable (and fast) on his Micro Mini scooter. So I suppose it was only a matter of time until he said to me yesterday morning that he wanted to scoot to the bus stop.

It’s a short walk (or scoot) to the bus stop, and a short walk on the other end too. But the smiles are wide. And when we showed up at daycare and he asked me to hold the gate open so he could scoot himself in, I had a good feeling.

And it worked! Yesterday and today, no tears at drop-off. Just a happy kid, feeling proud of himself, waving and saying loudly, “Bye Daddy!”

I’ve heard before the idea that kids do better with drop-off when they are the ones who walk away, so some schools and daycares have the parents stop at the gate and let the kids walk in on their own. I think there’s definitely some of that going on because he scoots up to the door himself, and more because he’s more actively involved in his travel the whole way. I think that’s one of the beauties of alternative (i.e. not cars) modes of transit: the agency it offers to people (like kids) who cannot drive.

Maybe I should let him take the bus and scoot to bedtime. Maybe it will help there too.