Anxiety of the Parents : When it’s Time for their Children to go to School

Children are the most beautiful creations of God. But in today’s competitive world, this creation is getting diminished gradually. Everybody wants their children to be the best but nobody does the needful. One of the most important and the first and foremost step is to get a proper schooling for the children.

  The anxiety of the parents, as well as the children during their schooling time, is something very normal. The parents become more anxious than their children thinking if their children will be able to cope up with the entirely new environment, or they might be bullied, or they might get punished, or they might get hurt or they might get anxious themselves. Several things run through a parent's mind while they think of the schooling of their children. Being a parent is one of the most precious as well as the toughest task but being anxious is just a negative add on to the entire thing.

 From waking up in the early morning till the time she goes to sleep at night, the parents go through the toughest phase of their lives. A lot of things go in their mind, one of them being the anxiety of the schooling of her child. But this feeling is normal during a new phase or a new transition of life.

  A child is a young soul and many things do not come into his/her head. A kid just goes with the flow but the parents, especially the mothers go through a lot of it when it’s time for their children to go to school. They go through tough time thinking about facts like -

• Will the child be able to fit in?
• Are their clothes well ironed?
• How will the teacher be?
• What if the kid misses the school bus?
• What if the child does not understand what is taught in school and is left behind?
• What if something bad happens at the school?
• Tiffin related problems.
• Bullying issues.

These are the most basic problems that make a parent anxious when it is the time for their children to go to school. But then again the fact pops up in the head that schooling and education is one of the basic needs of the children.


Overcoming the problems :

Overcoming these problems is absolutely mandatory for the parents. If the parents themselves get this much anxious then the child will face even more problems to adapt to the new situations and environments. The parents should motivate their children and make themselves understand that this is one of the most important things of life and that in this way  not only will the child get educated but also become more and more social and make new friends. They will get to learn more social skills and will also get valuable opportunities in the near future. They will also be acknowledged for their talents will which will also boost up the self-confidence in them which was earlier lacking.

 Hence, to get released from the stress and anxiety, the parents need to get a positive mindset first and then give that boost to their children also. This way both will remain positive and overcome the anxiety together.

Parent Anxiety : Formal School Admission Time and Choosing the Right School for the Toddler

Children are indeed a blessing to human nature. They are meant to be well nourished and looked after. But on the other hand, being a parent is not so easy. With this great blessing come big responsibilities as well. For the upbringing of the children, the first and foremost thing that is to be done is giving a proper education to the child.

But, how will the parent know as to what is the right time for their children to be admitted to any school? As per several research works, it has been found out that the best time to admit  a child to a primary school is usually between the age of three to five since that is the time when their social, motor and other skills start developing. That is the prime time when a child can learn and understand whatever he or she is being taught. At that point of age, some children are emotional, linguistically as well as physically advanced whereas some aren't.

Emotional Support :

  Not only from school but at that point of time the child needs mental and emotional support from his parents as well. Admitting a child later in school may prove to be troublesome for the kid as he might not be able to cope up with whatever was being taught in the school. Year loss is also one of the major factors. These are mostly the major reasons as to why should a child be admitted to a school at the proper age.

Selecting the best school for your little angel :

  But how can one be so sure as to which school will be the best for their children? Opting for the best school is one of the major decisions that a parent has to take. If the child is admitted to a wrong school then he may have to pay for it through his entire lifetime. Hence, selecting a proper school is a must for every parent.

While choosing a school, certain things should be kept in mind.

• The parent should be able to look under the label whether that is a public or a private school.
• The demographic measure of that particular school.
• Visiting all the schools yourself to get a proper knowledge about it instead of googling.
• Following your own instincts might sound weird but it actually works.
• While selecting a school, the parent should be generous enough instead of going overboard.
• Several options should be taken into consideration.
• Sorting out the child’s unique needs.
• Focus should be mainly on the four fit factors : (what the child learns, how he learns, practical             matters and all the social issues)
• Setting a priority on the basis of what the child needs.

These are some of the factors that the parents need to keep in mind instead of getting anxious. Selecting a proper school for their children and enrolling them in that school at the right time and right age is one of the major decisions which a parent has to make.

Preschool Teachers can do Wonder for the Children

Preschool teachers can do wonder for the children

The parents do struggle a lot to make their 3-year-old child get ready, to put on his jacket. But a preschool teacher has to manage many kids. He/she just takes less than three minutes to put on their clothes and take them to the playground.

Then what is the special quality she has? 

The kids are more prompt and quick to respond to the strangers than their parents. The teachers reinforce different types of techniques to help the little ones acquire knowledge and skills. As a result, the kids learn to keep the classrooms clean and tidy. The teachers make their tasks more entertaining and pleasure some. The preschool teachers have a lot of experience every year with the difficult and demanding age group.

Specialty of the teachers and their secrets:

• The kindergarten kids do not lag behind - 

The children seem to hinder the attempts of their parents to go to school every morning. But quickly they get ready when the teacher declares that the time is over and return from the playground. The parents tell their kids to vacate the playground but stop and start conversing with other parents. But when a teacher says something, they understand that she means it.
It suggests that offering a couple or two soft yet strong warning will help in proper all over development of children.

Kids always make a response to signals which they hear or calculate. A child may have a problem saying goodbye. But very soon she will develop and adapt the routine.

The teachers can play the same notes on the piano every day as a sign that the free play is over. Even they can blink the lights in the room, use an egg timer or bell to show the kids that the time is over. Counting too motivates the kids to complete the picking up the process in a rush. Compliments and achievements on their individual efforts are far better than earthly and material baits.

Also allowing the child to compete against herself improves her speed and gives an immense learning possibility. Timings should be maintained in case of getting ready for school, studies, and bed. Charts and graphs help to assess the child’s speed on separate days and urge her to win against her best time.

• Kids can hold the scissors and pens much before the parents expect - 

Many parents hold their children pencils, paper and kid safe scissors to help their children advance their motor and writing skills. The preschool teachers first make the kids acquire the skill in basic movements such as grasping nuts, small blocks with the help of stringing beads, kitchen tongs, rolling out play clay and cutting them with scissors.

As soon as the child has mastered it, he can cut thin little different colored strips of paper. Once he has completed his cutting, he considers himself competent and confident.

As far as writing is concerned, at first the kids manifest interests in using pencils and want to go beyond loops, scribbles, and doodles. Very soon he feels defeated that he cannot write alphabets. The teacher must continue to practice his holding of pencils like a mature person. The teacher must also allow him to copy or record anything he wishes to jot down.

• Routines and structure are important for cat naps - 

The kid along with other children goes for a nap as the other children are performing the same things. As a result, it is achieved with minimal effort in the preschools than at home. Many times the impatient and restless kids cover their eyes with a blanket and they do not search around.

• Importance of children’s attention - 

Instead of uplifting the voice for getting child's attention, it is better preferred to raise the voice for singing. If the children are not paying attention to a story telling, just converting it in a singing mode will let them listen to the story. The teacher applies various verbal strategies like whispering, quietly making facial expressions receive the attention of children. They even use visual clues like asking the children to do the same as shown by them or placing a hand up in the air or touching their finger to their noses.

Once received the kid’s full attention, the teachers keep their pronouncements short, clear and to the point.

• The child wants to dress himself all alone - 

Many kids wish to have the feelings of self-confidence, independence and achievements by dressing themselves. The child learns to organize his clothing the night before, labeling the dresses, habit of keeping the costumes and uniforms when not under time pressure. So, the child will learn to differentiate between the frontal side and the back.

• Play is the medium of education for the preschoolers - 

While giving homework, the teachers behave in such a way that it seems to the children more of fun and entertaining than simple route learning. The teachers through literacy project, effortlessly use letters in projects and games like counting books and customized mathematics.

 The child takes pleasure because he has his exclusive private weapon, an institution of wholehearted love waiting at home for him...!

Selecting the Right Preschool for Your Child

What is an Ideal Preschool?

It is a great responsibility on the parts of the family especially parents to select the right preschools. A good preschool motivates innovation and beneficial social communication. It gives support and close association making the children secured, safe and recognized.

There are various preschools and it is the onus of the parents to choose the good preschool from the right program.

Types of preschools and its functions :

• Public Preschool

The children receive a flavour of "big-kid" school plus school regulations, buses, elder students which can mitigate their transformation to kindergarten. Many public schools combine both growing and disabled preschoolers. A few programs are free of cost or provided at a low cost to the below poverty line families or to students with special necessity. All public preschools do not provide the preschool program. Priorities and preferences are given to in-district families and also to students who are of special needs. The students gain pre-academic skills from guaranteed and certified schoolteachers. They learn important school rules and educational routines in a beneficial surrounding which they love.

• Faith Based Preschool

The teaching is provided to the students through the synagogue, church or different religious institutions. The institution works in accordance with the principles of that religion. Together with the usual preschool curriculum, faith-based preschools foster the children’s spirituality which is a preference for many families.

The teachers set outstanding examples of Christian love with their actions and words. As a result, the children learn to act towards others with respect, forgiveness, and kindness in the classroom. It promotes growth physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually.

• Cooperative Preschool

This type of school is operated by a group of parents for the cause of education children. It is not a profit-making institution. The parents provide the professional and paid teachers inside and outside the classroom. It includes numerous parental participation like making snacks, volunteering in the class, raising funds and holding board positions.

 Cooperative preschools allow the parents to be a part of their child's initial learning education. The more the parents are involved in their child's education, the more flourishing will be the child in upcoming days.

• Montessori Preschool

Montessori schools concentrate on letting the children know and learn through play according to their own speed. Multi-age classrooms enable the older students to act as a trainer and adviser. This program tends to be more costly than the other preschools.

It takes care not only academic skills but the physical, social, emotional and spiritual requirements of the child. These schools are extremely reverent of the individuality and exclusiveness o each child. It allows the students to learn according to their own time and provides an encouraging, protective and receptive environment. Montessori education fosters curious, self-confident, independent and community minded pupils.

• Waldorf Preschool

These private schools are formed on the philosophy of Waldorf. It aims at supporting the imagination and hands–on learning in a homely surrounding. Students spend their time in the open air.

The teachers take up practical work like gardening, baking for the youngsters to copy and the models are made from natural stuff. Waldorf programs are guided by the teachers rather than the directions of the students. This early childhood program is recent and long running. Sufficient time and space are given for free innovative play. An environment filled with respect and love is spread throughout for the uniqueness and self-esteem of each child. This generates a sense of security and trust within the child.

There are many other preschools like specialized preschools, day-care preschools, in-home preschools, language immersion preschools, and Reggio Emilia preschools.

Teaching More than one Language to a Pre-school child. Is that possible?

Teaching more than one language to a pre-school child. Is that possible?

Children are the best creations of nature that have ever evolved. They are a blessing to this world more than anything else. Earlier, daughters were not given much importance that was given to the son but these days it has become equal. There is no such distinguishes made of the gender.

   In today’s rat race, everybody wants their children to be the best and this rat race starts from the time they are born. Once a child takes birth, his/her parents start thinking as to what he/ she would become after the next 20 years. Not only that, a new trend has begun these days. The parents are trying to teach more than one languages to their children from the time they have not even been admitted to the school.


Language: The tool of communication

  Language is undoubtedly one of the best tools via which the children can communicate. At a very young stage, when the brain is fresh and can be molded in any ways, is one of the best times when the children can learn more than one language. Children tend to have the habit of repeating what their parents do. So if the parents make them learn a new language then there are high chances of having a positive result.


Give your child enough time to learn:

Learning can happen at any age. Kids all over the world do speak more than one language and that too without much effort. Learning requires proper efforts and it is certainly not based on age. Children who know two languages act as a milestone for the children with one language. They inspire the rest to follow them literally. But this actually takes a lot of time. Giving enough time to the child to cope up with another language will make him learn the language much faster.


Best time to learn languages:

  Researchers have shown that the best time to learn two languages or more is before the age of 7. A mother, during her pregnancy, if she uses two languages to communicate, it is known that the unborn baby tends to hear a lot of sounds and variations which later on prepare their brain to learn three or more languages and that too with much ease.

  Learning two different languages takes time and patience as well as practice. Only if the parents use the language to communicate in front of the child, that does not help. The kid needs to practice talking in the language too. It should be included in his day to day activities like playing, dressing, gaming etc. talking to him in the similar language also helps. Both the parents, speaking on a different language each with the child, help a lot.

Develop their vocabularies from a young age-

  Kids at such a young age or rather at their pre-school age to be precise, have a rapidly developing skill and they quickly tend to absorb whatever they are taught or told. They can learn as well as act on two different languages at an extremely fast pace. Being bilingual, this also benefits the child in their later rat race life or rather competitive life where each one wants to be the best.

  The 2 or 3 years old have a lot of vocabularies as they start to develop as well as recognize the speech and patterns which they are consistently hearing since birth. The earlier one or more languages are taught to a child, the easier it becomes for him to understand and learn the language. The ability to understand the several phonetic pronunciations is the best at the age or under the age 3. This capacity keeps on losing with age.

  Therefore, teaching more than one language to a pre-school child is, of course, possible. In fact, that is the best time for a kid to learn several languages with a fresh mindset and huge developing skills.

Encouraging Play for Developing the Personality of Your Preschooler

You most likely saw your preschooler's one of a kind identity looking out those initial couple of months of life - coming to excitedly for a clatter or maybe pushing without end a teddy bear. In any case, between the ages of 3 and 5, your tyke's identity is truly going to rise. Amid these years, preschoolers additionally acquire restraint. They start to depend less on you and others and more on themselves.


How to solve the problem?

They're figuring out how to quiet themselves when they get energized, scared, or annoy and they're turning out to be more mindful and less candidly receptive. Preschoolers ought to be permitted to act naturally while as yet being urge to experiment with things that might appear to extend their developing identities.


Ways you can help your child's personality to grow :

While your kid's identity will bloom all alone normally, there's really a ton you can do to help and additionally a couple of things to keep away from.

1. Keep in mind that your kid is one of a kind. Kids contrast in surprising courses from each other in their growing identities. That incorporates kin. At last, solid identity improvement is cultivated by child rearing that is touchy and receptive to the individual qualities and necessities of the tyke.

2. Empower play. The play is a gigantic impact on a kid's improvement, giving children time to play is critical to offering your kid's identity some assistance with blossoming.

3. Play offers kids some assistance with developing physically, rationally, and inwardly. It shows them to work in gatherings, settle clashes, build up their creative energy, and attempt on various parts. At the point when children play, they rehearse choice making, figure out how to go to bat for themselves, make, investigate, and lead.


Things that shouldn’t be entertained :

1. Stay away from names. You need your kid's identity to create all alone without being formed by your (or anybody else's) perspectives. So abstain from marking your preschooler with words like bashful, bossy, passionate, or intense.

2. Set an illustration. You're likely the individual your preschooler sees and emulates the most. So it's dependent upon you to model good manners, sharing, and tolerance.

3. Understand its inclination and support. Try not to chalk up your tyke's identity to simply his or her temperament or the supporting you give. Both matter and both work together to make the differing qualities of kids and grown-ups' identities.


Sorting things up :

Give your youngster a chance to act naturally or herself, not a picture of you. Perhaps you're extremely cordial, engaged, calm, or timid. You might need your kid to be similar to that, as well. In any case, it's a great deal more imperative that your tyke is him or herself and that your youngster makes companions and meet the world in his or her own specific manner.

There are more approaches to offer your tyke's identity some assistance with growing. Case in point, perusing to your preschooler can be a vital key and by constraining TV time.

Positive Discipline the Better Alternative to Punishment for Pre-Primary Age Children

The ongoing debate on doling out rewards and punishment to children continues as a new dimension to positive parenting is added, that of Positive Discipline. As parents, we want the very best for our children, constantly striving to; find ways to equip them with the skills they need to succeed in life. Providing insight there is a quote from Aristotle that states “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit” and if Aristotle were right then we need to discover and use the methods that will encourage the development of right habits. Developing the right habits in the child is a process of disciplining and training.


The Need for Discipline :

As parents, effective techniques must be understood and practiced, in order to further the development of our children. This brings us to a discussion of the effectiveness of rewards and punishments in the rearing and upbringing of children. Discipline is the term given to the process by which we attempt to shape and change behavior, whether our own or our children’s behavior. Discipline is the whole framework of providing support, encouragement and guidance to generate socially desired and acceptable ways of behaving and relating to the world at large. When the word “discipline” is applied in the context of rearing of young children, it refers to the practice of a nurturing approach that fosters competence, self-control, self-direction, respect and caring for others, within children.

While rewards and punishment for pre-school and pre-primary age kids constitutes a process of disciplining and many parents and teachers see punishment as being a part of the disciplinary process. However, discipline for children is more about shaping and changing behavior and not so much about punishment. In order to build good habits and learn acceptable behavior, habits should be developed at an early age to begin with. It's never too early to introduce your child to positive habits, which will reward his or her endeavors throughout. Quite a few educators and child development experts are united in their view, that discipline can and should exclude punishment.


The Difference between Punishment and Positive Discipline :

Any discussion on rewards and punishment would not be complete without a fuller understanding of Positive Discipline that is being widely advocated. Discipline is understood to be different from punishment in its intent and consequences and is seen as providing the stimulus for cultivating strong positive behavior. The following helps make the distinction clear and you can see why the argument for Positive Discipline is winning votes.


Positive Discipline :

• Is done with a child; there is sharing of information knowledge;
• Is guiding and teaching to encourage and support the right behavior;
• There are no quick results, behavior change does take time and requires understanding, time, and patience on the part of the supervising adult;
• Effectively reinforces and teaches problem-solving and helps create positive self-image;
• Help develop long-term self-control and cooperation and collaborative attitudes.


Punishment :

• Is done to the child and does not involve dual participation. The child is given a mandate and asked to comply with is more about exerting control over the child through the exercise of  power, authority, and coercion  and fear of unpleasant consequences for any non-compliance;
• It tends to provoke feelings of guilt, resentment, anger and could result in inciting deceitful behavior to escape punishment;
• Disrupts communication being one way only and can upset parent-child relationships;
• Results in the child refraining from the specific undesired behavior in the specific situation but only temporarily, and can be resorted to when conditions of anonymity are provided for.


Why We Should Eschew Punishment and Choose Positive Discipline

When harsh and severe punishment is imposed for ‘bad’ behavior, it often becomes counterproductive and produces behaviors very different from what was intended. Children may as a result of the punishment become resentful, angry and vengeful but that is a small part of the argument. It could also result in suppressing the child’s natural expression creating a stultified, repressed and introverted personality, quite at odds with society.

Importantly punitive consequences are not seen as being very successful in teaching the child self-control. A child who is always reprimanded without discussion will have serious repercussions on the child’s personality as the child fails to develop necessary problem-solving abilities.

On the other hand, positive discipline concentrates on the positive points of a child’s behavior, believing that there are just good and bad behaviors and no child is bad. Positive discipline does not advocate punishment in any form and eschews punitive scolding, spanking, threatening denial of privileges. In answer to what else is there; that is what positive discipline is all about providing parenting methods based on two basic principles of;

• Creating a connection before correction;
• Involves the child in focusing on solutions.

A preventive, approach is required to guide the behavior of students in pre-school and pre-primary age group and mold them into fine citizens. The foundation for such an approach lies in the emerging body of positive behavior support as enshrined in the principles of positive discipline. The distinctively different approach that positive behavior support takes, serves to make harsh punishment redundant and wholly unnecessary. Punishment is no longer necessary and should be eschewed while a more concerted effort is made to adopt and practice wholesome Positive discipline methods to help your child mature into a mature and balanced adult.