Sending your kid to preschool: The best decision you could make

Sending your child to preschool is regarded as one of the smartest parenting decisions you can make. A high-quality preschool is not one that is aimed at churning out child prodigies who can recite the alphabet and perform math calculations by the age of 3. A good preschool lays emphasis on instilling social and communication skills as well as the abilities to control one’s impulses, modulate emotions and manage behavior.

When selecting a preschool for your child, it is essential that you try to get a keen insight into the ideologies that underlie the daily schedule at the preschool. For instance, Williamsburg Northside Preschool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is an acclaimed NYC preschool with a characteristic approach to elementary education. The preschool has adopted the Reggio Emilia approach to education that is based on viewing each child as a strong, capable individual replete with unlimited potential to grow and develop.

There are several benefits that a good preschool can impart to your child.

Benefits of sending your child to a good preschool

•  Social skills

A preschool offers a safe social setting for your child that can be conducive to the development of social skills. Your child can learn to relish the joy of socializing, develop a sense of respect and empathy for others and learn to resolve conflicts.

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• Behaviour Management 

Children learn to focus their attention upon the teacher and follow directions. Doing what needs to be done according to the daily schedule builds concentration and impulse control in the child. Waiting for their turn, raising their hand to speak and sharing resources help a child learn how to be a student.

•   Pre-academic skills
  
  

Preschools instill pre-academic skills in children through play way methods. Story-telling sessions enrich a child’s vocabulary as well as listening skills and comprehension. Children also develop fine-motor skills during art activities by handling scissors, painting and modeling clay. These fine-motor skills are useful when the child is required to put pen to paper in kindergarten and beyond.

Attending preschool introduces your child to the joy of learning and camaraderie. You should evaluate different preschool programs to find the one most feasible for your child. A program that encourages independent thinking and exploration, such as the one at Williamsburg Northside Preschool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, would help develop a love for learning and the ability to think critically, in your child.

Helping Your Child Take Well To Preschool

Sending your child off to preschool for the first time can be a nerve-wracking experience. It’s likely that both you and your child are feeling separation anxiety and that your kid would rather continue to stay in the predictable, secure cocoon of warmth and love you provide at home. Yet, in order to learn, grow, develop and explore, it is important that your child takes a step out of home and learns to be on their own. Preschool is the first step that a child takes into the big and possibly overwhelming world out there. You can help make this transition comfortable and joyful by keeping a few things in mind.

Helping your child adjust to preschool

·         Assure them that you’ll be back to pick them up

One of the biggest fears of a child who’s just started attending preschool is that their parents won’t be back to get them or that they may even disappear off the face of Earth! It can be hard for a child as young as two to four years of age to feel secure on their own and learn to trust complete strangers.

You can help quell your child’s concerns by saying something reassuring at the time of dropping them off at preschool, such as, “I will come back to pick you up at 3, like I always do” or “I will be right here when you step out of class at 3”.

·         Invite your child’s peers over to a playdate

Helping your child bond with other children at the preschool can make your child look forward to going to preschool. You can ask your kid if there’s any particular child they like and would like to invite for a playdate. You may also invite your child’s friend and his/her parents to dinner to facilitate bonding between your child and their newfound friend.

·         Help your child feel secure

When at home, give plenty of time to your child to listen to how their day went. Snuggle and embrace your child often so that they feel emotionally secure and connected to you. An emotionally stable environment at home tends to positively affect a child’s temperament and self-esteem.

Choosing a good preschool for your child can help provide them with an environment that is conducive to their growth and development. Williamsburg Northside Preschool in Brooklyn, New York, is known to take a multi-sensory approach to meet the varying needs of each child. 

Williamsburg Northside Preschool encourages children to engage with and express themselves through a variety of media, including paint, clay, collage, natural & recycled materials, music and dance.

Play is the work of the child

Have you ever observed a toddler engrossed in play? The child can be seen to display exceptional motivation, concentration and perseverance. What may seem to some as time-biding activities are, in fact, a child’s inner scientist at work exploring the world around them.

A child learns best through playing that is not entirely unstructured but combined with a certain amount of informed guidance and structure. Guided playtime can open up boundless avenues for young children, such as preschoolers, to learn key social, emotional, cognitive and pre-academic skills.

What follows is a list of the several ways in which different forms of play can benefit a preschooler.

·  Exploring nature

Children are naturally curious about the world around them. Scientific research shows that children who spend time exploring nature are more focused and healthier.

As an example, Williamsburg Northside Preschool in Brooklyn, New York, lays emphasis on letting children engage with and express themselves through natural materials such as rocks, sticks, pinecones and cotton wool. The range of natural materials that can be used is unlimited and offers children the opportunity to discover and create.

·  Music and dance

Music and dance offer children the opportunity for sensory explorations and for expressing themselves. It also helps children have joyous and meaningful social interactions with their peers and adults.

·  Dramatic play

Dramatic play is yet another play way teaching method that hones preschoolers’ ability to symbolize their experiences, express themselves, develop social skills and modulate their emotions.

The Williamsburg Northside Preschool mentioned above is also known to utilize dramatic play, for instance. Dramatic play is utilized at the school as a means for the child to develop their linguistic skills, comprehension abilities, cooperativeness and empathy.

·  Pretend play

The importance of pretend play in a child’s life cannot be overstated. Pretend play is the mark of a child’s budding ability to hold two versions of reality in their mind at one time. Pretend play has been shown to be an important precursor to developing ‘theory of mind’ or the understanding that other people have individualistic thoughts and feelings responsible for motivating their behaviors.

What Difference Does A Preschool Make?

Preschools are the new health fads – they are everywhere. When it comes to New York, this analogy surpasses itself with the burgeoning number of preschools that have mushroomed in and around New York in recent times. And just like many health fads, the populace remains divided over the effectiveness of sending your 3-year-old to a 'school' when he/she is not really old enough to learn something highly significant. There are parents who strictly believe that preschool is an essential rite of passage in the journey that is school education. But there are also parents that believe that preschool is just another futile exercise that only leads to a waste of money with no significant effect on their child's educational trajectory.

 The only way to really settle this debate is to understand that what difference does a good preschool really make in a child's future. If you are the 'Preschool? Bah Humbug' kind of a parent, then you might want to read a bit further if only to look at the kaleidoscope from the other side.

Let's take the example of Williamsburg NorthSide Preschool, a prominent preschool in Brooklyn, NY.

 A preschool can be a great place to give a nice little push to your toddler so that he/she is able to develop the much required social skills early on in his life. Children, especially toddlers are inherently disposed to like playing and interacting with other children. This makes preschool an ideal setting to let the kids make their own independent human connections. At Williamsburg Northside, children are regularly motivated to interact with their peers with the help of various fun activities requiring teamwork and coordination among the toddlers.

Since we are talking about independence, there are many parents that often worry that their kids are becoming too dependent on the 'family'. This is where one of the biggest positives of the Preschool system comes to surface. At Preschool, there are no nannies to feed the kids, there is no mum to put the jacket on.  At Preschools, toddlers learn how to eat without making a mess. They learn how to work with others, share their things and food, listening to others, and taking turns among other things. Getting them to interact with other children improves their communication skills as well.

Apart from various behavioral and social advantages, a preschool environment can also be very helpful when it comes to the realm of academia. Toddlers are highly impressionable which is also an essential ingredient in learning about new concepts such as alphabets, numbers, shapes, colors etc.

Many Manhattan preschools such as the Williamsburg Northside Preschool, often arrange lots of outdoor activities. This playtime allows the children to get more aware of their natural surroundings which often stokes their curiosity, ultimately leading to a healthy dirve towards knowing about things. These activities simulate the creative side of the toddler which contributes to their overall development.