|
Many children in their beginning years of life don’t have a lot of experience playing with other children. This is especially common in children who are the “only child” in the family. Preschool can be a traumatic experience for any child. But if your child isn’t particularly ready for preschool, it can be especially frightening.
You should ask yourself a few questions when trying to decide whether your child is ready for preschool. You should ask yourself if your child is shy. Shy children don’t always interact with children in the way they’ll need to in preschool. You should try to encourage your child to be a bit more outgoing before enrolling her in school.
You should also ask yourself if your child can stand to be away from you for more than five minutes. If your child has a hard time being away from mom and dad, there could be trouble when she needs to be away for an entire day at school. You might think that she’ll get used to being away from you and communicating with her classmates and with her teachers. But for kids at this age, that’s not always the case. You need to slowly work in a greater interaction with other people for your child. Make sure your child can get along with others before you enroll her in preschool so she feels more comfortable in that environment when the time comes.
Is your child interested in what other children are doing? In preschool, many children begin to learn from other children. Not only do they play games together but they also interact with one another in a way that they have never before.
Finally you need to decide if your son or daughter can easily communicate with adults other than you. Many children rely on their parents to translate for them when they need to interact with outside adults. If your child is going to be in preschool, she needs to feel comfortable talking with other adults.
Making the move to preschool is a big jump and you need to make sure your child is ready for preschool. If your child isn’t ready, you should give serious consideration to holding off a year and either enroll your child in preschool at another time... or skip preschool altogether and enroll your child in kindergarten during the next school year.
| 
