As the first day of formal school approaches, parents often focus on preparing their children academically and emotionally. While mastering academic skills such as shapes, colors, counting, and the basic vocabulary is important, it's also crucial to prepare your child emotionally and socially for the big change from staying home with you to being in an institutionalized setting.
To help ease the transition, it's recommended to let your child meet the teacher, and the other students, and even sit in on a day with you there. Role-playing and talking through what it will be like can also help reduce any feelings of disorientation on the first day of school.
However, there are other areas of competency that parents should also consider when preparing their child for kindergarten. These skills include the ability to handle basic tasks independently, such as going through a lunch line, finding a table to sit at with strangers, and getting through mealtime without guidance or encouragement.
To help develop these skills, parents can give their children similar experiences by eating at buffets where the child handles their own tray, chooses their own table, and makes all the decisions like a "big girl." By starting to develop these checklists in the last full year before kindergarten, parents have time to help their children develop these important skills well in advance.
In addition to academic and emotional preparation, there are other competencies that parents should consider when getting their child ready for kindergarten. Developing these skills in the last year before kindergarten can help children feel more confident and independent on their first day of school.
One important skill is being able to dress and undress themselves. While this won't be necessary at school, there may be times when children need to adjust their wardrobe and not having to rely on a teacher will make this a smoother operation. Learning basic tasks such as holding a writing implement, drawing basic shapes, coloring, and answering questions from the teacher without mumbling can also be worked on beforehand.
Listening and understanding a story, asking intelligent questions about it, understanding humor, making appropriate jokes, and knowing the fundamentals of the alphabet, numbers, and vocabulary are also important intellectual talents that children can pick up just by being part of the family. These skills will help children start the curriculum at kindergarten without the need for remedial help.
It's also important to help children develop social skills such as entering a room and meeting new people, understanding authority and rules, learning to live with them, making friends, and identifying and avoiding problem personalities in class. These skills will facilitate a happy social life at school and help children stay out of trouble.
By considering not only academics but also physical, hygiene, social, language, and logical skills, parents can reduce the surprises that children may encounter on their first day of school. A smoother transition to kindergarten will lead to a happy and creative attitude toward education, which can set the tone for a lifetime of successful learning.
