School Is Coming! Ease Those August School Jitters with Family Fun

As the summer days grow shorter and begin to fill up with school shopping, school physicals, and getting the family organized for the fall, your preschooler or kindergarten child may be showing signs of anxiety about making that BIG transition to being a BIG kid who goes to school. What can parents and grandparents do to help?

“One of the best ways to get young kids prepared for a school environment is to promote healthy, constructive play,” says Susan J. Oliver, Executive Director of the national not-for-profit organization Playing for Keeps. “To be ready for school means a child has developed in a more or less balanced way—she is physically competent for her age; able to form relationships and play cooperatively with others; is curious and open to learning; and can listen and speak in a manner appropriate for her age. If a child has spent his early years engaged in good, old fashioned play—which is the way kids learn those skills—chances are he will be more than ready for school.”

If moms and dads and others want to help ease their child’s fears about school—or perhaps their own!—play can be an effective way to get everyone in the family to relax and look forward to what’s coming.

As an owner of a toy store that specializes in personalized service and offers a staff highly knowledgeable about the developmental benefits of play, I look forward to the weeks before school starts. Even though it’s a bit scary for some, it’s such a special time for our young customers as they look ahead to becoming a school kid. For many, it’s the first big transition they will remember for the rest of their lives. It’s a good time for parents to come by and talk with us about ways to play during the last few weeks that can have a big payoff in relieving their child’s stress.

Five activities I think are great for preparing for school and easing those August school jitters:

• Play school at home. This can be one of the best ways to demystify what is going to happen when school starts. Essentially, you are rehearsing in the emotionally safe environment of your own home. You can keep it simple with lots of pretend props, or you can create a rough replica of the classroom somewhere in your home that can be a center of play. The Pretend and Play School Set by Learning Resources (featured) includes everything you need for the ultimate pretend calssroom. Using toys you already have (or fill in with some new ones), create a library corner, a place to do art projects, a block corner, a pretend kitchen, and a pretend house corner. Play with some of the typical rituals (like signing in upon arrival), but let your child direct the play as much as possible. If there is an older sibling who already goes to school, he or she will likely embrace the role of teacher.
  

• Encourage lots of play with blocks, floating objects, and simple art materials. These are some of the core activities in high quality early childhood classrooms. One of the great things about blocks and other toys that encourage open-ended play and experimentation is that kids can do so many different things with them—and feel successful every time. Whatever your child chooses to make or try, you can reassure her that this is a lot like what she will do in school. This can go a long way in alleviating fears—and perhaps even transform them into excitement about going to school.
  

• Get together with other families with same-age kids and play. One of the biggest predictors of school success is a child’s social skills. The more experience they have playing with other kids, the more likely they are to manage comfortably the cooperative play environment of the classroom. Use some of those last weeks and days before school to increase the amount of play with peers—and remind your little one that playing with friends is “just like school.”
  

• Talk a lot during play. When you talk to your child and listen to his responses, it helps build his vocabulary and models the appropriate use of language. Both help kids become stronger readers down the road, but the important thing for now is that your child knows many common words that she will use in school—for example, colors, shapes, sizes, and names of objects. When you hear her use the words in her own conversation, make her feel good and build her confidence about what she knows. “Boy, you know so many words, it’s like you are a school kid already!”
  

• Help kids turn a favorite toy into a trusted confidante. Kids will often tell their favorite stuffed animal things that they don’t tell mom and dad—even when mom and day are right there. This can be a great way to get kids to talk about their worries so parents can address them. Parents or grandparents can take the role of the stuffed animal friend and ask questions to get the child to talk. Remind your child that their stuffed toy is ready to listen any time—even in the car or on the walk home from school.

We encourage parents to relax about the start of school so their kids will be more likely to relax, too. For three, four, and five year olds, a good curriculum is going to include lots of play, and their kids already know how to do that. So both kids and parents can have confidence that everything will turn out okay.

Visit Tookiestoys.com for educational toys, games and other fun stuff!