I have a mindee (2.5yrs old) who went through a phase of crying when he came in, after 2 years of running in happily. I think he was upset one morning as he'd fallen over running from the car, then it became a habit, though he was fine once he'd come in & settled down.
I started getting him interested in something about 10 minutes before he went home. He then wouldn't want to leave it & go home, so I'd say I would leave it out on the table so he could play with it straight away the next day. I'd then tell mum & dad what it was he was playing with, so they could talk about it at home & how exciting it would be to have X to play with in the morning. It worked really well. At home time we'd show mummy what was on the table (something like a jigsaw, some cars, a picture to colour etc), then the next morning she would remind him what was waiting for him. After a week or so, I stopped leaving anthing on the table at night, but would put something out as a "surprise" before he arrived in the morning. It didn't matter too much what it was, he just loved to run in & see what was waiting for him. It became known as the "magic table approach
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