Category: Developing the Whole Child

You announce it’s time for bed, and your preschooler runs into the backyard and rolls around in the dirt. Or she screams and stomps. Or he whines and begs for more time.

It’s time to go to the store, but when you tell your kiddo to get her shoes on, she goes limp and refuses to move. Or he throws his toy across the room and tells you he isn’t going.

No, you’re not raising a monster. Your child just needs a little help with transitions. Fortunately, implementing these transition strategies for preschoolers is something you can start today.

What Do Children Need When Transitioning to the Next Activity?

It’s always good to remember that for the most part, kids have very little control over their days. And this can be frustrating at times. To feel safe and secure in this world run by adults, they need to know three things:

1. What’s next?
2. How long will it take?
3. Why are we doing it?

Think about it: you typically know all of this information for yourself, and so it’s relatively easy to move from task to task throughout your day. But if a child doesn’t know what’s coming after lunch, they’re going to be mighty surprised when they’re told it’s time to go grocery shopping.

Keep these questions in mind as you communicate with your child, and try to be upfront. “After we eat a snack, we’re going to tidy your room so that it can look and feel nice. I think it won’t take very long if we turn on some fun music!”

Stick to a Routine When Possible

Routines work well because they take the guesswork and uncertainty out of what’s coming next. Not every moment of your day can follow a routine, but there are several chunks of each day in which the same things need to be done — each and every day:

• Meal times
• Nap times
• Getting ready for the day
• Leaving the house for preschool
• Getting ready for bed

You may have even more routines throughout your day, but these basic ones are good places to start following a schedule.

Here’s an example:

After waking up in the morning, it’s time to make the bed and use the restroom. Then, we go to the kitchen and eat breakfast. We put our dishes in the dishwasher and head to the bathroom to brush our teeth. Next, we get dressed and find our backpack. We put on our shoes, and head to the car to drive to school.

Whether your child can do this whole routine on her own, or whether she needs you every step of the way, by keeping the steps the same each day, she can predict what comes next, and it will be automatic to move from task to task.

Time Your Transition

It’s really hard for a child to leave something enjoyable. When possible, try to time your transitions for moments when your child is naturally wrapping up. For example, wait until your child finishes a coloring page before announcing it’s time for a bath. Don’t yank your child from the produce aisle as he’s sniffing a strawberry; let him inhale, and then tell him it’s time to go find the pretzels.

Give a Signal

It’s easier to move from one activity to the next if there is a signal indicating the transition. In a classroom, a teacher might use a bell that gets children’s attention while signaling that it’s going to be time to do something else.

At home, you can try using a bell or a timer to signal play time is over and it’s time to run an errand. Or, like many teachers, you can also use a simple phrase each time it’s time to stop one activity and begin a new one. “Time to listen” or “Please give me your attention” work well.

Use Transition Words

Make eye contact with your child and say, “In a moment.” This will signal your child’s ears to pay attention to the words that you’re about to say. “In a moment, we’re going to clean up the breakfast dishes and get dressed.”

Give Choices

Nobody likes to be bossed around at every moment of the day. During transition periods, you can sometimes offer choices to help your child feel in control while also being more compliant with what needs to be done.

For example, “It’s time to clean up the toys. Would you like me to help you with the blocks or the dolls?”

Or, “It’s time to go to the store. Would you like to bring one toy or two in the car?”

Practice

If you notice you consistently have a problem with the same transition (i.e. getting ready for bed), it may be that your child doesn’t know everything that’s expected of him. Take a minute at a different time of the day to walk your child through the necessary steps of getting ready for bed. Have him act them out, and praise him for his cooperation. When it comes time for bed, remind him of how well he practiced earlier in the day and tell him you’re glad he knows how to do bedtime now. See if he can manage the steps without resisting.

Remember, no matter how perfectly you teach the principles of making transitions from one activity to the next, your child isn’t always going to like stopping one activity to do another. And that doesn’t mean anybody failed. It just means your child is a normal human being. Keep trying, and you’ll see improvement.

To learn more about UDA Creative Arts Preschool in Draper, Utah, contact us online or give us a call at (801) 523-5930

Look in a preschool classroom, and you’ll practically see the imagination floating through the air. Even while doing ordinary things, children are imagining themselves as superheros and animals. Their daily tools (toothbrushes, crayons, plates, socks) become airplanes, dragons, swimming pools and more with no effort at all.

Children are naturally good at imagining, which is a good thing — because they learn their best by imagining and doing.

When your child’s preschool incorporates play-based learning into the curriculum, your child reaps countless benefits. Here are five:

Imagination and Creativity

We may not always think of it this way, but creativity is a necessary skill for survival. When the dishwasher breaks and starts flooding the basement, you have to quickly find a creative solution for capturing the water before it ruins your carpet. When your boss expects you to meet a tough deadline, you have to be creative in your time allocation. And when your preschooler asks you to be a dog with him, you have to get down on your hands and knees and bark if you want to keep seeing that adorable smile on your child’s face.

So if creativity is such an important life skill, it stands to reason that your child needs to learn to develop it as soon as possible. And pretend play is the perfect way for that to happen. When your child gets absorbed in pretend play, her imagination takes over.  She can be anything, go anywhere, and have any sort of power she wants. This lets children think for themselves, keep their brains active and engaged, and build up that creativity they’ll need for their whole life.

Social Development

The world is big and scary. It’s confusing, and its rules are not immediately obvious to the under-4-foot crowd. Engaging in pretend play allows children to work out the social rules of the world in a safe space. They learn who they are and what they love, and they learn who other people are. As they pretend to be someone else (a chef, a doctor, a parent, an animal), they get the opportunity to think like someone else. What would it be like to walk in that person’s shoes? This aspect of pretend play helps preschoolers develop empathy for others.

As children engage with each other in pretend play, they learn to respect other people’s wishes and to notice when someone is having a good time or having a really awful time. They have to agree on the topic of play and negotiate throughout play as roles and rules change.

Language Skills

Did you know that pretend play is building the foundation for your child to learn to read? That’s right. Through pretend play, preschoolers learn the power of language, how to retell and reenact stories, and they build their vocabulary.

As they pretend they’re at the doctor’s office, they develop language appropriate to that location. And because they’re uninhibited through play, they try out words they may otherwise be too self-conscious to try.

Not only that, they need to ensure their meaning is understood as they act out situations. This requires sophisticated language skills that continue to develop through pretend play.

Problem Solving Skills

First, your child has to decide what to play. In that process, there will be some back-and-forth with the other children who are involved. Opinions will have to be considered, and solutions found.

Then, everyone has to decide the rules, roles, and materials for the game. And there is always some problem to figure out — a bad guy who is locking up the ponies, a tornado that is going to wipe out the town, a robber who is stealing the fruit at the grocery store. How will the children solve the problem? Sit back and watch their creative problem-solving skills whir into hilarious and ingenious action.

All of this is practice for real life, when cooperation and problem-solving skills need to be relied on each day.

Physical Development

Pretend play often turns into physical play. Children have to chase after the bad guy, climb to escape the hot lava, jump over the swamp of alligators, and more. All of this works to build their strength, while increasing their gross motor development.

Even when the pretend play doesn’t involve jumping, hopping, and running, physical skills are being developed. It takes strong fine motor skills to dress dolls, string beads, or gather items to “buy” at the store.

Bottom line: Pretend play encourages movement in all the ways your child needs for proper growth and development.

Pretend Play “Tools”

In pretend play, children don’t always use objects for their intended purpose. Sometimes, puzzle pieces become coins and toy cars become hidden treasure. Keeping a variety of items around your home will encourage your child to tap into her creativity and use them in imaginative and playful ways.

Some toys and objects to keep on hand:

• blocks
• old clothes
• old purses
• old magazines or phone books
• stuffed animals
• old sheets (good for costumes, forts, picnics, pretend meals, etc.)
• toy dishes or old dishes or utensils
• notepads and pencils
• dolls
• animal figurines
• a doll house
• cardboard boxes or tubes
• wrapping paper

Look at the world through your child’s eyes and see how everyday items can be transformed. Come see how we encourage and incorporate pretend play into our curriculum at UDA Creative Arts Preschool in Draper, Utah. Give us a call at (801) 523-5930, or contact us online to schedule a tour.

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me!” Respect does not come naturally to most children. As Aretha says, they have to find out what it means.

But for harmony to exist, it’s critical that we all know, understand, and use respect. Your preschooler is in the process of learning about respect for herself, for friends, for teachers, for parents, for possessions, for property, for other opinions, and so much more. Use these seven tips to teach respect to your preschooler.

Model Respect

You tell your child he can have only one cookie because it’s important to not eat too much sugar. You then proceed to eat four cookies right in front of him, while he angrily counts each cookie that passes past your lips.

This isn’t fair, right? (And if you really did this, you wouldn’t be teaching a correct principle about sugar, either.) It’s the same with teaching respect. If you want your child to be respectful towards you, family members, pets, possessions, other people, and more, you also have to be respectful to your child and to those same people, animals, and possessions.

Make sure you use polite language when speaking to and about other people. Use polite language when speaking to your child. Take care of your possessions, and be gentle with your pets. And while it’s not reasonable to point out each respectful move you make, you can occasionally describe why you chose to use the words “please” and “thank you” at the store. Or why, even though you were in a hurry, you chose to let an elderly customer go ahead of you.

Expect Respect

Preschoolers are capable of being respectful, and when you expect it, they will learn to live up to that expectation. This doesn’t mean they’ll get it perfectly every time, and it doesn’t mean you should be unyielding in your expectations. It may take years for them to remember rules like saying “thank you” at a restaurant. Be patient, and keep expecting. Your gentle encouragement and praise (“I’m so impressed you remembered to say ‘please’ on your own!”) will help them learn to be respectful over time.

Identify

Is your child truly being disrespectful, or is she distracted? You may have asked her to tidy up the playroom, but she was busy trying to get batteries back into her favorite light-up toy as you gave your request. She didn’t hear you, so she continued fumbling with the batteries. To you, it may look like disrespectful ignoring. But before you get upset, look at her and identify why she isn’t being respectful to you.

It’s also possible that your child didn’t understand your instructions. When you asked him to go to his room, get his shoes and coat, and bring them back to you so you could help him put them on, he may not have understood the entire set of instructions. That’s a lot for a little one to retain. Make sure you’re giving simple, easy-to-follow instructions that aren’t hard to mess up.

Name Your Child’s Emotions

Small children don’t always know what to do with their big feelings, so those feelings come out in hurtful words or actions. They might scream that they hate you, or they might hit a sibling or the cat. This is, of course, disrespectful, but keep in mind that these are huge opportunities for you to teach respect.

Instead of reacting in anger, name your child’s emotions. When you name your child’s emotions, they feel understood and secure. They also understand themselves better. They are then in a better position to hear gentle corrections.

For example, if your child throws a toy across the room when you ask her to wash her hands for dinner, you could say, “You’re upset because you were enjoying playing with your toys, and you don’t want to be interrupted.”

Once she hears that you understand — and she understands her own reaction — you can say, “Throwing toys is not the correct way to show that we’re upset, though. The toy could break, or it could break something else in the room.”

Your calm reaction will demonstrate to your child that it’s possible to be respectful even when we’re angry. It will also help your child to come down from her big emotions.

Role Play

We all struggle with selfish feelings, and preschoolers are so new to the world that they definitely don’t have a handle on those feelings yet. That’s where role play comes in when you’re trying to teach respect. When you act out scenarios that require manners (not interrupting, saying “thank you,” being gentle with a friend’s toy), your child learns what it looks and feels like to be respectful. This makes it easier for her to rely on those learned skills when the time comes for her to be respectful “in the wild.”

Teach About Differences

A lot of the disrespect that exists in our world today stems from people who can’t handle different opinions, races, religions, and more. Start young, and teach your child about these differences. Teach respect by helping them see it’s okay to have differences, that everyone is special in their own way. Teach them to look for the similarities among the differences. This will help your child to avoid feeling threatened or angry about people who are different from her.

Be Kind When They Mess up

Everyone makes mistakes. As adults and parents, we all know that better than anyone else. Remember that your child is going to mess up — sometimes in big ways. If you fly off the handle, put your child down, or criticize him for being stupid, he will not learn from his mistakes; he’ll only learn to fear you. He also won’t learn respect.

If you can be understanding and speak respectfully to your child when they mess up, they will feel your love and will feel capable of doing better the next time. They’ll also feel respected, and will want to return that respect to others.

A note: Be kind to yourself when you mess up. You won’t do everything perfectly. Apologize to your child when you make mistakes, accept your child’s forgiveness, and forgive yourself.

You’re working hard to teach your child respect, and your efforts will pay off. At UDA Creative Arts Preschool, we support our parents’ tireless efforts by teaching the children to respect themselves, their friends, the items at preschool, people who are different, and so much more. For a tour of the preschool, give us a call at (801) 523-5930, or contact us online.