What Your Child Learns Even Before She Starts School

Before you know it, it’s time for you to go back to work and for your wee little tyke to go to daycare. There are many instances where parents feel that their little ones are too little to go to a daycare facility and, hence, choose to take a sabbatical from their careers. Some leverage the help of grandparents and maids to navigate the challenge of ‘who is going to look after the baby?’ Given that it is a well-established fact that the early years play an important role in the development of a child, looking at a professional caregiving facility to look after your child when you are at work comes as a smart solution. Along with providing your child a safe place to stay, your child will also have learning experiences which will have an impact on their cognitive, emotional, physical and social development.

Research suggests that the brain develops a majority of its neurons from birth until three years of age. Hence, it is essential to provide rich learning experiences that go beyond the learning of numbers and alphabets and extends to behavioural traits such as motivation, self-esteem, and sociability. Providing appropriate experiences at the right stages to ensure that the child’s brain architecture develops optimally becomes central to child’s development. Parents, thus, need to provide a caring and nurturing environment and ensure that the day care of their choice echoes the similar philosophy so that the child can make a comfortable and successful transition to school.

In this blog, we take a look at some of the things that your child learns in daycare before the school starts.

Independence

Yes, it’s hard for you to let your little munchkin into a day care where the child is removed from his or her familiar zone. However, it is here that the child learns to be independent, establishes his/her identity and learns basic self-care skills. Since they are away from the secure zone of the parents, they learn to self-soothe themselves and become more socially adept in their interactions. They begin making a new little world that goes beyond the parent cocoon and grows to include their teachers and new friends. They also learn to perform simple tasks such as learning to put away their toys, learning how to wash their hands by themselves, learning to eat without help, etc. all of which makes them more independent and boosts their self-confidence.

Social Development

Professional caregiving facilities put a great deal of emphasis on social readiness. This includes teaching children the importance of sharing, learning how to play with their peers, understanding how to take turns to do an activity, learning how to follow directions and a whole lot of free play. Here, they learn to solve problems, be respectful of others and how to compromise. While a lot of parents feel that every minute of the child’s day should be utilised optimally in a caregiving facility, the importance of free play cannot be undermined at all. Free play helps in the development of creativity and imagination of the child and also helps them become well-rounded individuals who are capable of keeping themselves busy without external stimulation or motivation.

Professional caregivers also help the child develop his/her emotional readiness. They help the children identify different emotions and help them understand how to process those emotions. Since most toddlers have difficulty in identifying their feelings and emotions, they end up feeling more frustrated which inevitably leads to meltdowns and tantrums. By the time your child is ready for school, a good caregiving facility will help him/her learn and manage their emotions in a healthy manner. This proves to be immensely beneficial even in the long run.

Communication Skills

Professional caregiving facilities will help your kids develop their communication skills by performing several activities such as circle time where children talk about a specific topic. It could be about how they are feeling or an activity that they have completed, etc. Having daily discussions on age appropriate topics, story reading sessions, and even having general conversations help in developing the communication skills of a child. Exploration activities help in developing the child’s curiosity and lead to wonderful conversations such as ‘what happens to the water after it rains’ or ‘how do birds play’? Professional caregivers encourage such questions and help the children find their answers through conversation which builds communication skills.

Learning

Learning is not just limited to ‘ABC’s’. Activities such as story time, playing with blocks, talking to teachers about things that interest them such as stars, flowers etc. helps in strengthening the children’s pre-learning skills. Achieving academic milestones becomes much easier when a love for learning is established right at the very beginning. Moving away from the conventional method of teaching where children are asked to sit in one place and learn by rote is hardly a way to establish that.

Potty Training

A number of parents feel quite vexed over the fact that their children are not potty trained and hence are uncomfortable putting them in daycare. “What if my child does not get potty trained?” “What if my child soils himself/ herself?” “How do I even potty-train my child?” These are just a few of the diaper distress tales that both new parents and old, lose sleep over. However, a good caregiving facility will immediately put your mind at ease regarding this messy issue. Professional caregivers are programmed to understand when a child is ready to start potty training. Much like everything else, potty training should be started when a child is ready. A good place to start is to see if the child can keep a diaper dry for an hour. If yes, then he/she’s a likely candidate for potty training. Children also learn from their peers. In our experience, we have noticed that even the most adamant children who don’t want to leave their diapers behind do so when they see their peers are not wearing one.

A 40 year ongoing study conducted by Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute shows that strong early childhood education results in adults who are “more likely to be employed full-time and have better relationships with their parents as adults”.

Rhian Evans Allvin, Executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children says, “There’s an explosion of activity in the first five years of life, more profound than any future years…..If we can capitalize on that and maximize the support and learning opportunities, then we really stand a good chance of setting young children on a trajectory of success.” I simply could not agree more.