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Health Needs and Kindergarten

One of the fears parents often have of sending their children off to kindergarten is the exposure to a public place where the protection of the home is no longer possible. It is true that when your child goes to school with other children, the opportunities for illness and contamination are much more frequent. But the value of being in school with others and the social and educational value mean that we as parents must prepare our children to begin to spend time in a public place and that we do all we can to help them stay healthy and safe each and every day.

Part of preparing your child to stay healthy even in a public venue like kindergarten is to enlist the aid of your child’s pediatrician. She can make sure your kiddo is up to date on shots and that any vulnerabilities are well known. A good check up and getting all necessary shots before school starts will insure your child’s immune system is well equipped to deal with the additional exposure to germs.

But you can also teach your child good hygiene habits at home and engrain them in her lifestyle so they will stick with her even when she is at kindergarten and she doesn’t have you there to protect her. This includes good bathroom habits, an obsession with washing her hands as often as possible, being aware of others who are sniffing and who may not be taking good care of themselves to avoid contamination and using good table habits so the foods your child eats are clean and safe for consumption at lunch.

Good lifestyle habits at home will benefit the child at school as well. This includes a well developed schedule of getting at least eight hours of sleep each day and a regular diet of all the major food groups, particularly fruits and vegetables as these foods will give your child’s body the defenses it will need to ward off illness if there is an exposure to germs. Good dietary habits will be something that is taught as well as enforced at home. You can send your child a lunch to assure that at least she is taking the right kinds of foods. But the best defense is to make sure your child is aware of her own nutritional needs as it pertains to resisting illness so she also eats well when getting food from the cafeteria and stays healthy and regular every day.

You don’t want to send your child to school paranoid or afraid of other people. But some simple rules of how to interact with others in a way that is social but not risky should be part of your training as you raise the child. Just as you know not to eat after someone else using the same utensil, not to eat anything that has been on the floor or not to eat anything that you don’t know the origin of, these are basic health rules that children may not know if they are not taught. So be a conscientious parent and equip your child to avoid hazardous hygienic situations. Even if they are innocent dangers, they are dangers none the less.

The health preparations for kindergarten includes things parents can control at home such as check ups, getting good sleep and nutrition and gong to school healthy and clean. But they also include things you teach your child so she can keep herself safe and healthy even in the middle of a large group of other kids. By giving her these skills from the first day of school going forward, you are doing your job as good parents to assure she is ready for school each and every day from kindergarten all the way through to college graduation.

Getting Used to People

A child between the age of zero and five lives in a protective bubble. And that is a good thing because that little one needs to be surrounded by people that she trusts and that love her and will protect her at all costs. But even if that child has some siblings, those years are often relatively quiet and ones in which the majority of the people that child knows are primarily dedicated to one thing and that is satisfying all of her wants and needs.

Obviously this is not the kind of world that child will eventually live in. To say that very young children are spoiled is stating the obvious but that is natural and the way it should be. It is the task of older childhood and adolescence to begin to reprogram your children to live in a world the rules of social behavior are far more complex.

The first time your child will be exposed to that kind of environment other than an occasional hour in the nursery at church or at day care will happen when your little one begins kindergarten. There are a lot of surprises waiting for her there. But one that kindergarten teachers know is going to be a huge challenge is reprogramming those kids to the idea that everyone in that room is not all about them but that they are there to be part of a larger society.

This will be quite confusing for your child and many days when she comes home unhappy or upset about what happened at school, the heart of the problem will be this orientation issue. So anything you can do before your child goes to kindergarten to help your little one to learn to socialize in a larger circle of people and in a setting that is more normalized than the one at home will serve your kiddo well when those school days get underway.

Preschool is a great way to start that process early in life so much of that socialization is well underway before kindergarten days arrive. But if that is not an option or there are good reasons not to go the preschool route, you can find situations of socialization in which you can have your child in a group of many other children her age where there are some rules and the children have to learn to get along.

Even if you do not work, day care has some value in this area. You may wish to begin leaving your child at day care for an hour every other day starting around the age of 3-4 just to give her some time with others her age to learn how to behave in groups. This is a good approach because even if there are problems, you are right back and able to take her home and talk through what happened to help her make adjustments. And if she doesn’t go back until a few days later, she has time to process how to handle conflict and deal with authority differently so she has more success on the next outing.

This little exercise is also a good chance for mom to get used to dropping off her baby and leaving that child in the care of others to come back and pick her up later. Not all of the adjustments about the start of kindergarten are on the kindergartner because the parents also have some processing to do. And as you get used to seeing your child go into a social situation and come out better for it, you will be more confident. And your confidence will be picked up by your child who will grow more socially adept and able to deal with the rules of society long before kindergarten days get underway.

Getting MOM Ready for Kindergarten

When that first day of kindergarten is approaching, every effort is put against getting the youngster heading out on his or her first big adventure out of the home. There is a lot to do. Between meeting with the teacher, buying clothes and school supplies and preparing the little one for the big challenge of being away from mom and dad for a few hours to a day at school, it’s a big step for the kiddo and for the family.

But what is often overlooked in this rush to prepare for kindergarten is there is a very important participant in the process who also needs to do some preparing. That person is mom.

When you think of it that five years from the birth of that angel from heaven until he or she walks out that door for kindergarten is a pretty intense period of closeness and bonding. For virtually every waking minute of those years, mom is aware of that child, helping her, taking care of her and keeping her safe and healthy every step of the way.

Now the time has come to let that little one be away from home every day for several hours a day and start the road toward independence. Mom wants the right thing for her child and beginning the move to be her own person is the right thing. But there are a lot of emotions and mixed feelings that a mother goes through even in getting the little guy or gal ready for kindergarten much less on the day you let that child go off to start that uphill road toward higher education and success.

One of the people who can do a lot to help mom get ready for this big day is dad. If he is a sensitive dad, he will be aware that there is going to be a lot of anxiety and worry along with good old selfish desire not to let that kiddo leave the house. But dad can be the voice of reason for mom and for that kindergartner as both cope with the new way of life. By gently counseling mom that the road to independence is what will make that child a successful young person and eventually a healthy and well adjusted adult, that logic can filter its way down to the emotional system and start to convince the heart that the head in this case is right.

Other moms who have gone through this before are also a tremendous resource of comfort and advice for how to get through that separation, especially those first few days and weeks when the house seems empty and far too quiet. The friends can counsel that mom on how to fill that time, on things she can do to ease the anxiety like volunteering at the school and on the wonderful victories that the family will celebrate together when the little one comes home from kindergarten full of excitement about what she learned that day.

There are a lot of ways moms can get involved with the school to help out. That energy being felt in emotions that you are going through because of the change can be energies for good to benefit the school and to support your kids while they are in class learning to become good students. There are programs like Moms in Touch and volunteer organizations to benefit the library, to raise funds for new furniture and equipment for the school and to help teachers buys supplies.

If you channel those good energies of love and caring that used to be used only to take care of that one child toward good causes like this, the school will benefit and so will your child’s teacher and her class. So in a way you are continuing to nurture and care for that baby by nurturing the environment that is making her a better person. And that is a good way for mom to get ready for kindergarten before the little one goes off to school and each and every day of this important year in your child’s life as well.

Facing Kindergarten with a Little Help from Her Friends

For a young child, making friends with children her age is probably the most important step in developing relationships outside the family that your little one can do. Psychologists tell us that about the time most children begin to go to kindergarten is also the time when they first begin to understand the separation of the world from family and that relationships outside the family are desirable.

When a child is in infancy, the entire world revolves around mom and dad and her siblings. They want for little else and the love and approval of parents, brothers and sisters is all that baby lives for. But it is about the age she is ready to go to school that the interest in friends separate from family begins to surface in most children. This is helpful because the development of friendships at school will also be the one thing that will most ease the difficulty from the life of living at home and going off to school each day.

You as parents can encourage your child in bonding with youngsters his or her age long before you send that child off to kindergarten. Sometimes we as parents can be a bit protective and see the home as a sanctuary where we want to shelter our children for as long as possible. But while that is a natural emotional reaction to parenting, particularly with your first child, you know intellectually that it is healthy for your youngster to develop friendships outside the home and learn to socialize as soon as she feels ready to do so.

The first week that a child goes to kindergarten is a big step for a child. Anything you can do to get her ready for the change in schedule, in food, in what she will do all day and who she will be around will help your little one adapt and succeed in school from the first day going forward. And for a very young child to whom the security of knowing everyone and everything in the home has been central to her sense of well being, any familiarity that can be introduced to the classroom when you take her off to kindergarten will help establish that classroom as a place of safety as well.

In a way, while you may not have thought much about it, if you have had your child in play groups as an infant, that was a very good start. The more your little one has learned to adapt to new people, to get to know someone different from her and different from mom and dad and her siblings, the less that first step into the world of education will be for her. One thing a child will learn at playgroup is how to be outgoing. This is not a natural instinct in a lot of children. While we are used to youngsters being “shy”, many times that shyness is just insecurity at not knowing how to go up to another child and make friends.

By including as many new people in the playgroup experience and also encouraging your child to interact with others within the family, at church and at the park, that feeling of security that making friends is a fun and rewarding experience will be engrained in a child from their earliest experiences with the world. And it will be a skill that will stay with them for life.

In addition, if you can do a bit of research to find out if a few of your child’s friends from playgroup are going to be in the same class at kindergarten, you might even meet with the other moms before school and go over together. When that small band of friends enters that new world holding hands, they will feel secure in each other and that bond will enable them to open to new people and new experiences. And when your little one is open to learning, their experience in kindergarten will be fun and fulfilling for her and for you because you enabled your child to go to school and make friends every day.

Don’t Sweat Out Kindergarten

Preparations for Kindergarten can get pretty involved. They would include making sure your child has the right clothes, looking into the right schools for your little one and helping the teacher have all the school supplies she needs. But preparing your child emotionally to set out on this big adventure is one of the biggest challenges of preparing for kindergarten.

Actually, the task of making sure your little one goes off to have a great first day at school experience doesn’t start with the child. It starts with you. Children take their clues from mom and dad. And very often it is mom who is on the front lines of this first step of guiding her baby through the many twists and turns of public education. And as much as a child might experience some nervousness and anxiety about the big change that is coming, mom may be the one that feels anxious about this next big step in the life of her child.

There are many emotions that come with parenthood. And unfortunately worry and fear are two that seem to be constant companions of moms who feel it is a big job to protect this precious life that has come to live with you. There is a big secret you should know that will help you tremendously in making sure your child is excited about that first day of school. And that secret is your child should not be able to tell that you are afraid for her or that you have any anxiety at all. If your little one feels you are confident both in the school and in her to go to kindergarten and be a big success, that confidence will translate into a strong self confidence that she can live up to your expectations.

Children take almost all of their emotional cues from their parents, particularly at this early age. If there is a momentary time of insecurity such as a car mishap or a problem with the house, if mom and dad stay calm, the children will stay calm. They trust you to telegraph the right emotional response to change and challenge in life to them and they will mimic you faithfully.

What is both comforting and a bit disturbing about this trait in children is that they can sense if you are afraid or nervous even if your words are confident and reassuring. Children learn how to read body language long before they learn spoken language. So in order for you to telegraph confidence and a sense of excitement about the big change that is coming, you have to feel it too. And that can be difficult if you are experiencing anxiety about being without your child and seeing her head out into the unknowns of life without you being there to protect her.

The earlier you get a grasp on this concept and begin to discuss it with your spouse, the more successful you will be at quieting your own fears and anxieties so you don’t pass them along to your children. There are a number of ways you can help yourself calm down and begin to feel that excitement you want your child to know. You can go to the school and watch a class being conducted so you get a feel for the talents of the teacher and the warm and creative environment in class. Then if you meet the teacher after class and discuss your thoughts with her, that will help a lot.

By thinking through this big change and getting excited about the big adventure your child has ahead, you send a message of fun and excitement to her as she heads out to kindergarten. And that attitude can be the key to her success in this next big phase of her life.

Doing Your Part in the Classroom

For many moms the idea of driving up to a big scary elementary school and dropping off their child for kindergarten can be pretty frightening. And in preparing for kindergarten, getting your child ready for that moment of separation can be one of the most difficult things to do. That is why a great option for a lot of moms is not to completely separate from the child in their first weeks of kindergarten but to be an active parent and get involved volunteering at the school even in the summer before kindergarten gets underway.

Kindergarten teachers are notoriously under funded and often depend heavily on the help of parents both to get ready for the school year and during the year to serve as “classroom moms” to help out with children who need to go to the bathroom, who get sick or to coordinate activities in the classroom and during field trips. If you take the initiative toward the end of the school year before your little one goes to kindergarten and meet the teacher who will be your child’s first teacher in life, that teacher will love meeting you and your child too and getting a head start on making friends with her.

That one step alone is worth its weight in gold because by meeting the teacher that your child will have in kindergarten, she will have a friend and know that when she goes into that room, the person in charge is nice and is looking after her best interests. But don’t just let your meeting with the teacher go with just a meet and greet. If you let her know you want to do all you can to help her get ready for school and then be a classroom mommy during the school year, that will also be a big help and that teacher will happily take you up on the offer.

During that last month of summer as the first day of kindergarten approaches, that teacher will mobilize “the troops” to get ready for class. There will be a lot to do to get the room fixed up and decorated and to prepare all of the materials for the different games and lessons that will be taught in the first weeks and months of class.

By being a volunteer mom, that teacher can look to you to come down to the school and help with the preparation process. Moreover, you can take your kindergartner-to-be with you and she can help get the room ready too which will make her feel engaged and encourage a sense of ownership about what is about to happen in school. Your child can interact with the teacher and other adults or children who are there to help prepare for the year and that is a nice way to ease into the step of going to school officially when classes begin.

When classes start formally, you will already have a relationship with the teacher and you can be in class to be the eyes and ears and loving hands to help out with all the kids. You should be ready to be a mom to the whole classroom when you volunteer at your child’s school. But because you are in class off and on in those first few weeks especially, your youngster will have that sense of comfort and security seeing you around which will then naturally transfer a trust in authority to the teacher and the school.

As the year goes on, you can slowly reduce your classroom presence based on what the teacher needs. You can still volunteer in the library or to help out the school outside the classroom so your child still sees you on campus. But this is an excellent way to ease your child into the new setting providing that sense of security of having mom nearby but slowly getting used to the idea that kindergarten is a safe place, a fun place and a place where she can learn and excel even when mom isn’t around. And that is an exciting transition to watch your little one go through.

Day One of Kindergarten and No Surprises

Getting prepared for any big new event is all about eliminating the element of surprise. That is why soldiers go to boot camp, why athletes practice for months before competition and why actors rehearse nonstop before show day. And it’s what drives parents like you and me to start months, maybe years before your child goes to kindergarten to remove any element of surprise in what will happen that day and so you know your child is prepared in every possible way for that day she walks into kindergarten.

Some of the aspects of that first day are easy to get ready for. You know your child will need new clothes and probably more clothes because he or she will be at school every day. You don’t want your offspring to be embarrassed by having to wear too many older items. So you might buy them the fashionable kindergartner things so that first day is one of fitting in and looking just like the other kids.

School supplies, medical forms, books and backpacks are all standard fare for the first day of school and they always will be. So you will have ample checklists either given to you by the school or from other parents who have gone through this before. And your own child may become quite opinionated about what he or she will need when that first day of school finally gets here. You will want some level of common sense to go into the preparations for kindergarten, particularly when it comes to the spending but at the same time anticipation is part of the fun so you can afford to give in to it a little bit just to make the event one of excitement and joy and not dread.

When the big day comes, you may even have gone through some drills with the family on getting up, getting dressed, showers, breakfast, making the bed, making lunch and when you need to be out the door to be heading toward the school for the first big day. For you as a parent, the more that first morning feels organized and like a well oiled machine, the more you feel like you have removed every element of surprise from the morning.

Of course, it’s always smart to have some flexibility in your ability to respond to crisis. Even with the most well oiled machine and best preparations possible, it’s within the range of possibility something could go wrong. As you move into the final exit for school, keep in mind that there is an emotional element of this moment and your new kindergartner is watching you for how you react to sudden change.

So be prepared to react calmly and maybe with some humor if something goes wrong. Remember, if you are late or, god forbid, your child doesn’t make it at all to that first day, she can still show up on the second day. Kindergarten classes and their teachers and administrators are well acquainted with the jitters and things that happen to parents so don’t panic if something goes wrong. By not freaking out if there is flat tire, a sudden outbreak of nerves related hives or some other “crisis”, you are teaching your child to handle crisis when she is at school and you are not there.

So model flexibility and adaptability. After all, that is what sending your child to kindergarten is all about for your child. And if you show your little one that being prepared is always the right thing to do but being able to handle change is just as important, she will be well trained to take on kindergarten in good form and to go on to much success in first grade, second grade and throughout her academic career.

Dad’s Role in Making Kindergarten Great

In the traditional family structure, the role of father is clearly unique. Perhaps it is because dad goes off to work and comes home with that big booming voice or maybe it’s that he is a soft touch for ice cream or an extra ride on the Ferris Wheel at the State Fair but dad has a special place in the hearts of the kids. He is both the voice of authority and sometimes the voice of wise counsel when children need someone to guide them and direct them.

On the other hand, it is mom who is there every day, guiding every event, making sure the children are safe and cared for. Both jobs are crucial and beloved by the kids, even if they don’t know it or say so. So when the time comes to get your little one ready for kindergarten, it may be that both parents can have a big role in this transition as well.

There is no doubt that in terms of the physical preparations for kindergarten, mom is a big decision maker. The clothing that your new student will wear, buying the right school supplies and even buying the extra things that will be needed in the classroom are all good jobs for the primary shopper in the family which is often mom. But if you can get dad in on the act particularly in the mental and emotional preparations for kindergarten, that can be a huge help because he can use his mentoring role to give the child permission to begin to accept this big change.

This is especially true in the case of dad’s little man. A young boy often idolizes his father and admires him as a hero because dad is brave and able to go out and conquer the world each day. When the family goes on the trip, it is dad who is leading the way, slaying the dragons along the way, saving the fair maiden (mom or sis) and hunting food for dinner (paying at the restaurant). In the child’s imaginary world, dad is a combination of mighty warrior, master hunter and mighty wizard. These are some powerful images that you can tap to help that little guy see himself as ready to the big adventure of going off to kindergarten on his own for the first time.

If you can get dad to be the one to drive that slightly frightened little one to school, he often knows just what to say to change fear into excitement and to motivate his son or daughter to want to go in there and do great to make dad proud. That is the nature of the father’s role in the lives of his children. So why not use it to help your child through this very important day in his or her early childhood development?

Very often dads have a special bond and a special language they speak to their sons. To an outsider when dad says, “Get in there and be a man” to his little boy, that may sound harsh and not nurturing. But what the little guy hears is, “I know you can do it. When you go to kindergarten like a man, you are being a brave warrior like daddy.” And that is just the right language to motivate that little guy to face his fears and go to that first day of kindergarten and be a big success to live up to that strong affirmation and high expectation of daddy.

Computers for Kiddos

Going to kindergarten in this new age is a lot different than it was when we were children. Modern children are more aware of the adult world, more sophisticated and certainly more aware of technology and the internet than was imaginable even a few years ago when that youngster was a newborn. So we have to take that into consideration when we begin to prepare a child for kindergarten because there is really no level of schooling that is untouched by computers and technology.

The first step for finding out how much your child needs to know about computers and the internet day one in kindergarten is to visit the school and talk to the teacher. It really isn’t a matter of kids being forced to learn about cyberspace. Schools are simply using the internet for teaching because kids are showing up already knowing all about it. As you look around any modern kindergarten class, you will see dozens of computer kiosks so the kids can connect to the internet and use the internet for anything from research to communications to learning games to exploring the galaxies.

So much is made about the dangers of the internet and those are certainly real. But there are tremendous resources that the kindergarten teacher will take advantage of to take that new class to wonderful new places using safe and carefully prepared web sites that can enhance the child’s education.

The next step is to find out just how much your little angel already knows about computers and the internet. If you have a computer and you allow your child to wander around the internet already, she may know more than you imagined or wished she knew. But by having a conversation with your child or by sitting online and exploring some basic web sites together, you can gauge her level of skill and knowledge. It will be an unusual meeting between parent and child because its very possible that at times you will be teaching her things and other times she will be the teacher and you the student learning the most modern things that young people, even very young people like your child, already know about the online world.

Be sure when you begin to expose your youngster to the internet that you have also made sure the internet is a safe place for her to be. You can create specific account on your computer just for your child that is heavily restricted. You can get some excellent tools that are often called “net nannies” which will keep your sweet innocent child from accidentally going to sites they should not see. You can even set up a set list of web sites you will allow them to be on and restrict their browser so only those sites are authorized.

Helping your child build internet search skills will jump start her into the modern world of school wonderfully. But there are other computer skills that being online will help her develop to make her more efficient even in this very basic level of schooling at kindergarten. If you can open the world of email, instant messaging and chat to your child on kid safe web sites where she will be talking to other children only, your five year old will actually develop fairly well developed typing skills being motivated by the fun of online conversation with other kids.

There are other computer tools that will of tremendous value to your child that she can begin to get exposure to in the months leading up to kindergarten. The Microsoft office suite which is so useful to adults will be an important tool set for any student even in elementary school. Learning to use the powerful resources of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint will give your child ways to accomplish their school assignments that are fun because they are on the computer and so much more efficient than the old pencil and notebook method.

By thinking like a twenty first century parent, you can start even at the kindergarten level to see your child’s school experience as one that will be heavily influenced by computer skills and the internet. And by equipping your child to be ready to use those tools from day one at kindergarten, she is jumping into school way ahead in terms of being equipped to be a big success in her academic career.

But I Don’t Want to go to Kindergarten!

That phrase is the one we least want to hear either the day of or the night before the big moment when your child is going off to kindergarten. The last thing you want is for your child’s first day at kindergarten to be the result of a power struggle. That kind of unpleasant start to what is going to be a very big change in the life of a child will only put a cloud over the day and perhaps his year at school and that is exactly the opposite of what you want.

Of course, if it comes down to a pushing contest, you are going to win. And sometimes children test your borders with a comment like, “But I don’t want to go to kindergarten”. You know your child best and if that is what is going on, you also know how to maintain your authority so they know that going to school is not option and that not only will they go today, they will keep going every day for the entire school year.

Sometimes just laying down the law is sufficient. Children are tremendously adaptable and once your little one realizes that this is just the way it is going to be, you might be surprised how quickly he figures out the system at kindergarten and becomes a big success there. If that is the outcome, you are to be congratulated because you won the confrontation and established in your child a healthy respect for authority and learning to work within the system.

The key is, one way or another, you want to make them want to go to kindergarten. However, it could be that there are some methods that can be used to provide some inspiration for the child to want to get out there and be part of the fun and go to kindergarten along with the other kids. Peer pressure can be a good force as much as sometimes it is negative if it takes our children into the wrong behaviors. But if you give your child the chance to be with kids his own age and in the neighborhood and those kids are going to go to kindergarten starting that same day, that could be a huge motivation to go to school because the child sees it as extended playtime.

The age kids go to kindergarten is about the time they begin wanting to be with friends and get away from home a little bit. Their curiosity is high and they want to experience new things so you can tap that desire by creating the image that this will be a big adventure and that there will be lots to do there and that kindergarten will not be as boring as staying home day after day after day.

If your child has siblings who are already in school, there is often a desire to go to school to be like older brother or sister. So you can enlist the aid of those siblings to get the youngest in the family who is about to enter school to want to get out there and find out what the world is all about. Often the kindergartner to be also sees that sports and social activities are a big part of school life too.

The important thing is to use whatever motivation is naturally there to help your child get a real enthusiasm for school. You do want to talk to them about obeying the rules and working hard. And there will be lots of chances to do that long the way. But for day one, let this big step into kindergarten be all about excitement and fun. Your kiddo can figure the rest of it out as the school year progresses.

A Little Separation is a Good Thing

One of the things about a child going to kindergarten that is so new is the feeling of being apart from mom and dad for the first time. For most infants, one of the things they can count on the most is being able to be with mom or dad, all the time. It’s one of those constants that gives a young child that sense of stability and safety from which she can explore the world.

So when that moment comes when the child will be going off to kindergarten, it might be the first time that your child will be away from you for any significant period of time. And that can cause anxiety for the child as well as for mom and dad. But there are things you can do to prepare for that moment of separation so the shock isn’t so sudden and so the child can acclimate to the new world of public school.

The key to reducing the anxiety of that big move to kindergarten is to “test drive” separations from mom and dad in the year or so before kindergarten. Now, it’s fairly normal for a child to be with a babysitter for an evening. Often this is grandma or the child spends the evening with other relatives with whom there is already a fair amount of comfort and security. But you might think about making these kinds of separations more frequent to where the child knows he or she will be away from mom an evening each week indefinitely.

The importance of starting to make separations very routine is that you take away the idea that any separation is a rarity and that the routine is to be with you nonstop every day and every night. But at the same time, a very important event happens each time you drop your baby off at a sitters and she has a successful time away from the home. And that event is when you return to your child, safe and sound and the child begins to understand that mom and dad can go somewhere else, that they are safe while they are gone and that they will come back and take her home.

While this may seem simple to you, it’s a huge breakthrough to the child to come to that realization. And that understanding is crucial because when your baby goes to kindergarten, she will often wonder if mom and dad are alright. So giving her the ability to visualize where her parents are and what they are doing is tremendously helpful for her to feel secure that the world is a safe place and everybody is where they should be.

Giving your infant the ability to “see you” when you are apart is a huge help to that coping they go through as being separated becomes regular when she starts kindergarten and goes there each day. You know you child can visualize mom at home. But if you also let her get a feel for dad at work and be able to “see” him at his office after a nice visit or some time during “bring your child to work day”, then that coping becomes even easier.

By increasing the frequency and length of outings for your child during the last year before kindergarten, her confidence will increase and she will actually see times away from mom and dad as adventures and chances to do new things and have more fun than ever. And when that enthusiasm for trying new things is built up, then you have done a good job of reducing the impact of separation and empowering your child to get out there and be a success in her first year of school and every year thereafter too.