Getting your Child Ready for Daycare: 5 Useful Tips

Starting out in daycare is a major change for kids not to mention their parents. Seeing a child crying, sulking or behaving badly in a daycare environment is not uncommon. While the sight of an unhappy child is distressful, the responsibility for the behavior usually rests on the parents.

Leaving home, which is the only stable environment they know, can be very difficult and even traumatic for kids. Parents should provide them with the training needed to deal with such a change without much stress.

It is necessary that kids adopt easily and naturally, to a daycare atmosphere; it will be easier for them to transition to any change later such as going to school, and other major ones that follow down the road.

The right kind of preparatory groundwork about daycare beforehand can help kids accept the change with a smile.

5 Useful tips

Every child and family environment is different from any other, and the change each child will face on starting daycare will be different. Having said that, five useful tips are listed below for your benefit to help your kids with the daycare environment.

1. Convince the kid of the importance of daycare: Make it clear to your kid that she is not the only child leaving home for the daycare – every child is. Explain that this is a part of growing up – very good and necessary for her – and there is no other better option. Explain how sad it will be to be alone at home and how much fun it will be making new friends and playing new games. This is not certainly a bargaining situation; it is a fact that the child must accept.


2. Answer all questions: Your kid will have many questions. Answer them all patiently and in detail. The more patient you are the more secure the child will feel about the coming change.


3. Make the kid accept rules and chores in the home:
Be consistent in enforcing rules and chores in your home. Acceptance of routine and discipline in the domestic environment will make easier the acceptance of new rules and disciplined behavior required in daycare.


4. Do not feel guilty about sending your child to daycare:
It is easy to feel guilty about sending a child to daycare and try to compensate by giving in to unreasonable demands, and tolerating unacceptable behavior. Children can easily sense feelings of guilt in parents, and this will make them feel that daycare is not a “good place.” Be positive and consistent in your behavior, to reassure them that the change is normal about which there is no need to be frightened.


5. Incorporate daycare rules at home in advance: Spend some time at the daycare in advance, study the rules that apply there and try to incorporate them in your home beforehand. This will reduce the kid’s feeling of discomforting change in the new setting.

Of course, getting your child ready for the changes that go with a daycare will be of no value if the daycare itself is not right. Daycare centers these days mushroom all over because of the growing demand.

Finding and evaluating the best in your area to choose from can take a huge amount of time and effort. The internet can make things much easier and enable you to find and select the best daycare with minimal effort and maximum sense of safety.

Look for a portal that provides details of licensed child care providers in your area. This will enable you to get in touch with them to have your questions answered and fix up a program tour. Once you are happy about your choice, you can send your child there, secure in the knowledge that everything will be safe and good.

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