Preschool offers your child much more than a place to go when mom or dad is at work or away. It, like any other school, is a place where young children go to learn. Even though your child will start building an academic foundation (learning their A, B, C's and 1, 2, 3's), that's not all they'll do during their preschool day.
If your child is one of the 4% of all children who suffer from separation anxiety disorder, or if they just seem a little anxious about spending hours each day in a new facility, then you may wonder just what you can do to ease this anxiety during their first week of preschool.
Don't worry; you can easily help your child make the transition from home to preschool as seamless (and tear-free) as possible.
Read on to learn four tips for preventing separation anxiety during your child's first week of preschool.
There are different philosophies about the rate of growth of your child's unique personality and intelligence. One of the most widely accepted models is Piaget's theory of cognitive developmen t
. It involves four developmental periods of change, which each human goes through. It begins as an infant and continues through early adulthood.
Two of the most fundamental of these four stages occur during the years between infancy and toddler. These periods in your child's life are vital to building a solid foundation to mature both intellectually and emotionally. There are a number of things you can do as a parent to help your child's growth.
One is to use structured teaching practices at home with your child, plus you can introduce them to outside experiences through enrollment in a quality preschool program. Here are the two early stages in Piaget's theory and how they apply to children of preschool age.
The preschool classroom is buzzing, busy and filled with the giggles of young children as they whirl and dash around the place. Sometimes what seems like controlled chaos in this classroom is actually much more than you think. Learning in pre-k doesn't always (or often) look like learning in grade school.
Your child's preschool teacher understands the developmental issues at play here and creates lessons and activities that promote learning through methods that might not always seem standard. At least, they may not be when it comes to what many adults picture when they think of "education." If it looks like the preschool classroom is all about play, and not focusing on learning, think again.
Take a look at how young children learn and why the early-childhood environment isn't a strict instructional setting.