It's normal to have anxiety on your childs first school trip but you can't let your fear and anxiety robb him of the joy and the experience. I suffer with anxiety and constantly worry about my kids.

The trip is well supervised and schools have procedures in place to ensure your childs safety. I've found that by confronting my fear and anxiety with facts and rationalizing it really helps. My pyschologist recommend a thought process which really helps.

The first step is write down all your fears and anxieties in the first column. In the next column write down all the facts. In the third column write down or answer if you have anything to worry about or rather if your fear is justified.

For example

Someone might take my child while on the excursion-The school has provided full supervision with responsible adults.- My fear is not justified, I have nothing to worry about.

This really helps me. If you can't controll your fear and anxiety then as suggested you could volunteer as helper.

When my daughter came back from her first excursion, she was so excited and raved about it. All my fears dissolved and I had no problems, until my angel started school then my anxiety hit the roof (she has anaphylaxia, so my fears could be rationalized and justified) but I work with school and they help to keep my angel safe and elevate my fear and anxiety. When my son started kindy at the begining of the year my anxiety surfaced again but for different reasons ( he has learning delays and speech delays) so I worked through it again.

Talk to the school and find out their policy and actively relieve your fears. The schools can be very accomdating when it comes to parents and do all they can to keep children safe.

I hope this helps!

Cheers Raven

As Mystikal suggests, perhaps you can volunteer to go along - schools are usually happy to have as many responsible adults along as they can! Depends on the rules for volunteering - you might have to be police checked or similar (in the UK it is CRB checked, depends on the rules where you are).

My DD1 went on her first School trip at 5, and then her second at 6. Now I am getting nervous because she is going on an all day trip with the Brownies on Sunday (12 hours). But it is healthy for them to go on well organised trips away from mum & dad. Helps them grow in confidence. I was never so surprised as when I went away at 16 with my YTS training group and found that 3 of my fellow trainees had never been away from their parents for a night before! You really dont want to handicap your son like that, so a school day trip is a good place to start - to ease you both into this new learning experience!

I remember being about 6 and going to the zoo/museum it was great! Why don't you talk to his teacher and be one of those "volunteer" mums who get to come to the zoo too and help with supervision? That way you get to have fun too and perhaps seeing things with your own eyes will help your fear in the future I know when I was younger, parents were always encouraged to come along.

 I think i was year 1 or 2 when i went on my 1st school trip but it was a camp/over night stay thing. I dont know if that helps but just thought i would share it. my mum was sad tho lol.

The teachers that go will probly have done plenty before and will know how to wrangle them lol.

is there anyway you can go too?