Easing Your Child into a Child Care and Learning Center

Quality early care and learning centers are a fun, busy, exciting place for children to experience and learn about their world. These centers offer many opportunities for children to explore new surroundings and meet new friends while developing skills to use throughout their lifetime. Most parents enroll their children to increase their social experiences and prepare them for kindergarten. As a parent, you are the major influence toward a good experience that will set the stage for many happy days in the future.

The first difficulty you will experience is separation anxiety. This is very common for children when entering a structured learning environment for the first time. If you prepare yourself for the first time you leave your child in care it could decrease the pain you feel when you walk out the door. Prepare your child for their visits by talking positively about the classroom, the children in the classroom and the teacher. Avoid phrases such as, "I'm sorry" or "I have to go to work now".

It is developmentally normal for children to feel some anxiety and nervousness when they enter a new environment. All children need time to adjust, and all children adjust differently. Our programs work in partnership with parents and their child to participate in a gradual enrollment program. Families are invited to ease their child into the new classroom at small increments of time increasing over a period of a week or two. During this time the parents will begin to leave the child for periods of time. Upon returning, a parent is given feedback about their child's adjustment. Building this bond with the teacher will also ease the anxiety that parents feel during this process.

We provide our parents with the following tips to ease separation anxiety. First, organize your morning routines to allow for extra time during drop off. Children feel your frustration or anxiety for being late for work and will cling to you longer. Second, expect crying and clinging. Third, do not linger too long in the classroom, even if your child is unhappy. Do your best to settle your child into an activity, say your goodbyes and give hugs and kisses then leave. This is where that strong bond between you and your child's teacher comes in handy. A good teacher will assist you with this type of separation and follow up with a phone call on your cell phone or at work with a happy update.