Is your child ready for playschool?
Playschool is ideally a place you send your child to help him develop social behavior, from making friends to sharing his things, but when is the right age to start? In India particularly Delhi NCR, there is a gamut of pre-schools and the admission to main schools is so stressful that parents usher their kids into a playschool as soon as they turn one! But how do you decide your child should go to a pre-school?
I waited till my child crossed 2.5 years of age while pre-schools told me he is ‘late’ I did not feel the need to make schooling a rat race. I am sure many of you too must be going through the same, well then go through these parameters which helped me decide that it was time he started a pre-school
Talk
This was the number one precursor for me, I wanted my child to tell me what all he did at school. A child should be able to express hunger, his need for something before he starts school. It makes it easier for the child if he can convey his message to the teachers at school. Also he can tell you if there is anything that is making him uncomfortable at school.
Sleep habits
Sleep habits in young children are erratic but ensure you make them follow an early to bed early to rise habit. This shall ensure your child doesn’t get cranky in school and enjoys albeit learning new things. Try to make them sleep on time, yes there are days when the child will refuse to get up on time but once the habit of rising early starts, it stays. I try to wake him up from his evening nap by 5, this makes sure he sleeps by 10 and gets up at 7.30 in the morning.
Need to rectify social behavior
In this age of single child and lots of toys, it is often difficult for children to understand sharing. Many kids are slowly finding videos, games and television more attractive than playing with children of their age. Going to school restricts TV time and makes the child engage in social behavior by sitting with their peers. This transition is kind of difficult as their socializing is limited to play time and for my child post 2 months of per-schooling, is still to happen.
Interested in learning
When your child starts showing an interest in learning new things like colouring, clay modeling and reading books, they will adjust to school life too. School especially play school is about structured play that helps learning, it is not what we learnt as kids. Here children tend to lean as they play which helps in quicker grasping. My son would never learn much from me, but the playing in a structured manner is helping him grasp basics like Good Morning and colours, alphabets.
