UAE back to school: Parents ready to tackle tears, anxiety and mixed emotions

How do you tell your three-year-old that it’s time to go back to school, just after she’s grown comfortable being at home?

Swaleha Madani, assistant professor, cardiac rehabilitation specialist based in Al Ain, knows the challenge that lies ahead, as schools gear up to open after weeks of distance learning. There’s an emotional layer to the shift, and it extends far beyond timetable and uniforms as it involves rebuilding carefully a sense of psychological comfort.

For Madani, the transition feels especially fragile. Her daughter had only just begun to settle into nursery life before everything paused. With a background in clinical practice, teaching, and mentoring students in health sciences, she recently took on an academic director role, just as her daughter reached school-going age. She explains, “When my job started, I thought my daughter is fit to go to school and she may be able to accommodate and acclimatise with the environment outside home,” she explains.

However, the timing meant everything was happening at once. “The challenge that I face is going to be doubling for me,” she says, describing how her daughter had only just started nursery in January after months of waiting until she felt she was ready.

Even that decision came with hesitation. “I felt she’s quite young to be sent away from me,” Madani says. Eventually, she chose a familiar, comforting environment, a nursery where language and culture felt close to home. But just as her daughter began settling in, a new challenge emerged. “The separation anxiety I saw in her. It was very tough. She was just getting used to the nursery and then the fact of staying away from me, and then the schools shut down.”

Now, with reopening on the horizon, that worry has resurfaced. The feeling does tend to weigh her down, but Madani is ready to walk through it. “I’m just so worried at the moment that the nursery separation anxiety is going to come back again into my routine,” she says. “It has been the biggest challenge. It used to be hard to see her cry while I was leaving her at the school door. She just got used to it, she was happy, and then things changed suddenly.”

In the absence of certainty, Madani has focused on continuity. She has spent the past few weeks trying to keep the idea of school alive at home, through gentle reminders. “I’ve tried to keep it as a routine, remembering school, remembering her teachers,” she says. Her daughter holds on to the connections. “She would say, ‘I don’t want to go to school, but I miss my class teacher.”

The teacher became an anchor, Madani says, noting how those early bonds mattered, even if they were brief.

To bridge the gap between home and school, Madani is returning to old rituals. “I’ve started showing her school bag, her water bottle, her tiffin,” she says, recalling how much her daughter once enjoyed packing her three-tier snack box and talking about sharing food with friends.

Now, it's a steady stream of reassurances. “I tell her, we’re going back to school, and it’s going to be nice again. You’ll have friends, your teacher will take care of you, you’ll play and do activities.”

She’s also realistic about what home can and cannot replicate. School gives structure in a way we can’t fully recreate at home, she says. At home, we spend some time on activities, and then we move on.

Some triggers cut deeper than others. For her daughter, the school uniform became one of them, a signal of separation she wasn’t ready to face. “The moment I would change her dress in the morning and tell her it’s time to go, that’s when she would start crying.”

So for now, Madani is stepping away from that cue. “I’m not trying to show her the uniform,” she says, adding that the school has been understanding, allowing her daughter to return in casual clothes until she feels at ease again. “I strongly feel, it’s going to take a while, maybe a week or 10 days, for her to get back into that mode,” she says — holding space for the time children need to find their footing again after disruption.

For other parents, the emotional tone is entirely different, but no less layered. In Abu Dhabi, media owner Asha Sherwood is preparing for a return that feels almost celebratory. Her daughter, she says, is quite excited to get back to school with her friends, and to be able to have face to face lessons again.

The adjustment here is a logistical one. “The only adjustment will be to get back into the swing of things as a family,” she explains, pointing to early mornings, lunch prep, and the return of a packed calendar. “For my role as a media owner, it’s back to playing Tetris with schedules,” she says, as school pick-ups, after-school activities, meetings, and events begin to overlap once again.

Further north in Fujairah, Foram Dattani, a community builder and mother to a 13-year-old student, describes the past few weeks as ‘an emotional rollercoaster.’ Even at a distance from the immediate noise of conflict, she’s acutely aware of its impact. “Children may not always express it, but they absorb more than we think,” she says.

When news of reopening came, it brought relief, but not without its undercurrent. |A sense that life is slowly finding its way back, but along with that relief came a quiet anxiety that every parent carries, hoping our children step back into school feeling safe, secure, and emotionally ready.”

Her approach, like Madani’s, goes deeper than logistics. “Preparation has not just been about uniforms and school supplies. It has been about rebuilding a sense of routine and emotional comfort,” she explains. That includes adjusting sleep schedules and reducing screen time,but also creating space for conversation. “Simple, honest, pressure-free conversations where he feels heard.”

With teenagers, she adds, the balance shifts. “Instead of pushing, I’m just listening, encouraging, and reminding him of the positives: meeting friends again, returning to a familiar routine, and reconnecting with a sense of normal life.”

First, you need to acknowledge that this return is different.

This is a significant shift, as Louise Hurley, founder of Parent Prosper Coaching, explains. There was an unprecedented change in routine, and now it’s time to return to the old normalcy. “There are a plethora of emotions surrounding this return, and a lot of uncertainty. And children don’t directly state what’s on their mind, they show it in their behaviour. They will test boundaries,” she says. So, parents need to re-establish boundaries, human routines and sleep schedules again.

Moreover, she emphasises that it is normal for there to be resistance on returning to school. You might need to expect the afterschool meltdowns at first. So, don’t expect a smooth transition at first. Plan the goodbyes and talk them through it, she says. “Tell them, ‘I’m going to drop you here’ and avoid the emotional drop-offs,” she says. Hurley also adds what parents shouldn’t do: Avoid putting pressure unintentionally, by saying, ‘You’ve been here before, so why are you worried?’ Bring back a sense of safety, and tell them little reassuring words such as, ‘Your teacher is going to take care of you’.

Laura Brennan, behaviour specialist and founder of I CAN Collective, points out that children often mirror what they see at home. If parents are visibly anxious, that tension can easily spill over. After weeks marked by uncertainty and stress, many children may have absorbed more than adults realise, even if they don’t fully understand it.

The way forward, she says, lies in clear, calm communication. Talk children through what their school day will look like—what time they’ll wake up, what lessons they’ll have, and what to expect. At the same time, gently reset expectations around screen time and routines. “Avoid constantly fixating on the situation,” Brennan adds, encouraging parents to keep conversations steady rather than overwhelming.

Small comforts can also make a difference. A simple reward system, a favourite toy tucked into their bag, or even a familiar blanket in the early days can ease the transition—offering children something to hold on to as they find their footing again.