5 year old having a meltdown about going to preschool

I'm posting this from work, but my 5 year old son is at home with my husband, locked in his room. It's 12:30pm here and he is still having a meltdown about having to go to school (Montessori preschool) today. It started when he woke up and hasn't really stopped since.We woke him up at the usual time and he instantly started yelling "No school!" His dad and I tried to be nice and playful about it, offering to help him get dressed (we put pants on him, he took them off immediately), give him a card for his reward chart if he got dressed and ate breakfast, and generally encouraged him to "do things the easy way, let's not make it sad!" No dice.The carrot didn't work, so we tried the stick. We were going to take a toy away every few minutes if he couldn't stop yelling and crying. This (as it often does) didn't work either--he didn't change his behavior at all, he just got even more hysterical about the punishment. This is a common response from him; he can't seem to connect his behavior to the consequence he doesn't like, or, at least, he can't pull out of his hysteria. But my husband insists on using this approach, hopeful that eventually our son will connect the dots.I ended up taking my 2.5 year old daughter to her daycare and going into work. My husband stayed home with our son, who, according to text messages, is still regularly crying and yelling about not going to school. I think my husband tried to take him at one point but turned around in the parking lot because my son's behavior was so bad that he didn't want to give him to the teachers like that. As an aside, there's nothing bad happening to him at school, he just says it's boring.He has had plenty of tantrums and meltdowns in the past, especially about waking up, getting dressed and going to school, but today's performance has far surpassed anything he's done before. We obviously can't keep him home every day, and he needs to go to school, but I also don't want to drop off a screaming, crying child at preschool. I'd love to patiently wait it out with him, but we obviously have the time limitations of the morning to consider. My husband and I both work, and trying to get out the door on time is impossible when he's like this.Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Any suggestions? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2kfXGUY