Preparing Your Child To Start Preschool

No parent is ever
ready for the day that their child goes off to preschool. But
that doesn’t mean that your preschooler can’t be ready. Even if
you’re nervous about the separation, you should do your best to make sure
that your child is prepared to head off to preschool when the time is right.
You want to do well as a parent and part of this means giving your child the
tools to go off on his own, even if it’s just for a few hours at preschool.
And by preparing your child both educationally and emotionally for the preschool
experience, you’ll help to quell your own fears about the situation.

Here are
some of the things that you need to do when preparing your child to start preschool:

• Know
  where your child should be academically. Your preschooler doesn’t
  have to be right on track or ahead of the game, but you should have some basic
  child development knowledge of where other kids of the same age are going
  to be. This varies depending on the age that your child enters preschool but
  can be figured out by checking out basic parenting books on development. Help
  your child reach an average academic place before sending him off to preschool
  so that he doesn’t start at a disadvantage.
• Point out the
  ways in which your child is growing up and make it a point to say
  that preschool is a big kid thing. This way, your child will be proud
  and excited about preschool, not scared.
• Purchase
  some special preschool items that your child gets to use only when going to
  preschool.
  A backpack, lunchbox, set of crayons … these small things that are for
  school only can help with the transition to preschool.
• Use a
  schedule at home since your child will be on a schedule in preschool.
  Have a playtime, a nap time, a video time, and an outside time that are basically
  the same every day. The routine itself may be different in preschool but the
  process of getting used to a routine won’t be new.

And of course, the
most important thing about preparing your child to start preschool is that you
have to prepare yourself. Even parents who are eager to return to work
feel a twinge of regret when it’s time to send kids to preschool. It’s
a change that breeds fear. But if you are overly anxious about it, your child
will pick up on that and the transition to preschool will be more difficult.
Trust that you’ve prepared your child for preschool and rest easy in that
knowledge.

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