Want to get your PRESCHOOLER to LISTEN? Learn HOW from EXPERTS!

“My child zones out in the middle of any conversation!”

“Sirf wahi sunta hai jo use sunna hota hai!”

“My child doesn’t listen to me! What should I do?”

If you are one such parent who can relate to these comments and don’t know how to get your child to listen, this blog is for you! To start with: DON’T WORRY. We all have moments when trying to get a child’s attention feels like talking to a brick wall.

At home, this inability to listen can be infuriating and at preschool, it can get in the way of their learning.

The experienced educators at the best preschool in Bopal, Ahmedabad understand that this inability to listen can get in the way of a child’s learning. Here are some tips and secrets straight from the expert’s desk:

How parents can nurture good listening skills

At the best preschool in Ahmedabad, every teacher is constantly working on developing a child’s listening skills through different activities, but there are things that parents can do at home to help them even more:

1) Be a good listener yourself:

For young children everything starts and ends with their parents. You might not have noticed but every child observes and analyses their parents and unconsciously integrates the parent’s habits into themselves. They may copy gestures or internalize words learned from their parents. Children can easily tell if their parents are being attentive or not by the way parents reply or not to their words.

Hence, as parents, try setting a good example by showing children how to be a good listener by being one. Keep your phone aside or stay away from any kind of distraction and show your interest. Maintain eye contact, stop what you are doing and show your children that they have your undivided attention. No matter how irrelevant you find your child’s talk, make sure to respond and react to them.

Wait there’s more! It’s not just with your child, model positive listening skills with other people too, especially when your kids are around.

2) Be very clear while giving tasks

According to child experts, a reasonable attention span to expect of a child is two to three minutes per year of their age. That means, 2 years old would have an attention span of four to six minutes, 4 years old would have eight to 12 minutes, and so on. That is why it is very important to avoid over-explaining to young children. Moreover, they struggle to multi-task, so rather than expecting them to follow a long list of instructions, be short and crisp while talking to them.

For instance, rather than telling your children, “Brush your teeth, take a bath, comb your hair, pack your bag, wear your shoes.” Break it down for them. Give them one or two tasks at a time. Tell what’s expected of them and ask them to repeat everything you’ve said to make sure that they are listening and understanding everything.

Always remember, the way you talk also matters, so don’t just shout your request from the kitchen or the living room. Maintain eye contact while talking to them.

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Ensuring Holistic Growth & Development of Every Preschooler

The formative years in a child’s life are the most crucial period, where the foundations of lifelong learning, health, attitude and behaviour sets in. The conditioning and experiences that children have in their early childhood shape their mindset and capacity to learn, cooperate and respond to daily challenges as they grow up.

And in the 21st century, academic excellence alone won’t guarantee success nor happiness in life, hence it is important that your child gets holistic development through education. This is something we at Little Wings, a preschool in South Bopal, Ahmedabad, believe in and put into practice in our education system for the students and guide parents too so they can play an important role in it.

But, what exactly is Holistic Development?

In simpler terms, Holistic Development in preschoolers refers to a child’s growth in all aspects, physical, intellectual, emotional and social. These abilities, when developed and nurtured early in life, help children become well rounded professionals upon growing up. What makes it different from the conventional methods is that it imparts knowledge through experiences and not just textbooks. It makes children an active participant in charge of their own learning, while the parents and teachers play the role of a guide.

How can you, as a parent, encourage holistic development in your preschooler?

The educators at our preschool in South Bopal, Ahmedabad, have always guided the parents on how to be a mentor to their child without being dominant or intrusive. Nurturing holistic development in your child means…

Letting them explore

One of the most natural traits of children in their formative years is their curiosity about anything and everything under the sun. Let it thrive in your child, let them ask questions about matters outside their textbooks, about the people they interact with outside their day care centre, about the food they eat, the sounds they hear. But, refrain yourself from answering their questions right away, make it a fun and rewarding experience for them to find out the answers themselves through conscious learning or by looking for the answers together.

Letting them experience

This majorly involves the physical aspect of holistic development outside the day care centre. It includes the development of gross motor skills such as walking, climbing, and sprinting, all activities where the child uses her whole body for movement. Plan fun and engaging activities with your child which will help in improving their hand-eye coordination, strength, mobility and balance.

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The Power of Play-Based Learning in Preschool

When it comes to their children, Indian parents do not leave any stone unturned. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, Indian parents spend the most time helping their children with homework. All over India, 95% of parents help their children with their studies. This shows how most Indian parents bury their heads in textbooks to work on the endless projects given by the school to their kids, instead of the kid learning through new projects.

Choosing a preschool or a children’s play centre where rote learning or memorising is encouraged to get good grades or to get into good primary is perhaps not the best idea. This will just lead to preschoolers with poor learning skills.

So how exactly should you encourage healthy learning patterns in children? Play-based learning is the answer! Play means an enjoyable activity for children, with no end goal. In simple terms, play-based learning means children learning through playing like hiding, building, searching, games etc. Given the importance of play, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, also recognizes play as a right of every child.

Little Wings, one of the best play schools and preschools in South Bopal, emphasises play-based learning to lay the foundation for a child’s holistic growth & development.

Communication skills

While playing, children talk and listen to others, which polishes their communication skills and enhances their vocabulary. In these early years of education, when teachers in children’s play centres encourage conversation in a natural way, it can be especially effective as young children receive information and connect it with what they already know or with what they have just learned. Even singing or playing word games with their classmates can help the preschoolers increase their vocabulary and become more confident

Sometimes children play alone and talk with their toys or narrate an imaginary story while playing. “Hey my train is about to leave the station, cho-cho,” or something to that effect is what you might have overheard your child say. When they enact these multiple sides of the conversation, it encourages communication growth.

Motor skills

Young children have more than 600 muscles in their body and they actively use these muscles while climbing, running, playing ball games, jumping, throwing and dancing. Play based learning helps children enhance their hand-eye coordination, control over their muscles and helps them become more flexible.

On the one hand, activities like running, skipping, jumping, help children develop strong gross motor skills, activities like colouring and painting help them develop fine motor skills. When you see your child playing on a slide in the preschool or hopping on a monkey bar, it may seem like they are just enjoying themselves. However, their little body is doing a lot of work and strengthening their muscles. It makes children physically active from a very early stage.

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Why Parent-Teacher Collaboration Is a Must for the Holistic Development of a Young Child

Watching a kid grow up feels magical. From the day you hold them in your arms to the day they leave for college, the journey is filled with innocent love and loads of laughter.

When kids overgrow their parent’s laps, they have to get out of the protective shadow of their parents and enter the world of learning. And teachers, no doubt selected from some of the best preschools, are the first people who help in making this transition smooth for both the parents and the child.

However, this does not mean that the parents do not have any more role to play in the growth and learning of their child. Children have a lot to learn and this never-ending learning process is successful only with the teamwork of parents and teachers! When they work in tandem, it helps little ones achieve important learning milestones quicker, as parents and teachers are the two groups of people with whom children spend most of the time.

As the best preschool near Bopal, Ghuma and South Bopal, we have decoded the how and why of parent-teacher partnerships.

Benefits for parents

Parents are the first teachers to their child. They have an opportunity to nurture their child and advocate for their education. From having conversations with teachers during morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up to monthly and weekly functions at school, there are various ways for a parent to communicate and establish a good relationship with their child’s teachers.

And what happens when parents have clear communication and strong partnership with teachers?

1. They understand the school’s academic programs better.
2. They gain insights into their kid’s growth and development at school.
3. They get ideas from teachers on how to support their kids in a better way, even after school.
   
4. They get to establish a bond of trust and support, if their child needs extra care.
5. Parents also gain confidence in their parenting skills after helping their kids at school.
6. Having an open channel of communication with the teachers means parents can confidently voice their important concerns.

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5 Things to Look For While Selecting a Preschool Post-Pandemic

“This looks good but is it the best for my kid?”

This is a common question that pops up in the minds of parents while taking important decisions for their little ones.

And when it comes to picking the first ever school for their child, it is not as easy as searching Preschool and Childcare near me on Google. In this post-pandemic age, many parents are still apprehensive about sending their children anywhere outside the safe confines of their homes, fearing the spread of Covid-19.

To answer the most commonly asked question of how to pick a preschool that is safe for my young one and near me? Here’s a checklist for every parent to follow and choose the right preschool or childcare for their little ones.

✓ Child safe space

The safety of their kid is of paramount importance to every parent and even more so in a post-pandemic era. So while finalising a preschool for the kid, a parent should check out every little detail about the preschool. For that, a parent should know what is important in current times.

Ask the following questions to make sure the campus is safe for your child:

• Are all areas in the school including washrooms, well-kept and sanitised?
• Are all the staff members vaccinated?
• What are the safety measures taken in the school in case of an outbreak?
• Is the school fully equipped with not only age-appropriate toys but also with smoke detectors & first-aid kits?
• How does the staff ensure that the guidelines by the government are being followed? Be it social distancing, wearing masks or sanitising hands?
• Does the school have a response mechanism for different pandemic scenarios?

If you as a parent think that the preschool or childcare centre has left no stone unturned to keep the above points checked, you have your answer right in front of you.

✓ Holistic learning environment

According to NIEER director W. Steven Barnett, PhD, children who attend high-quality preschool enter kindergarten with better pre-reading skills & richer vocabularies. Quality education in the formative years is also important because the first five years of kids are the most important years as during this period their brain grows to 90 percent of its final adult size, which means it is nearly full grown. And good quality, early learning can be achieved with holistic play-based learning.

Holistic learning basically implies that the child gets to develop physically, personally, socially, emotionally and spiritually as well. A preschool that prioritises holistic learning and growth provides kids with multiple opportunities to explore how things work & helps them enhance their skills. It has dedicated teachers who teach a well-structured curriculum in a fully equipped space.

When it comes to the current scenario, a preschool should also teach kids about the importance of sanitisation & should promote hygiene. It should help kids build self-confidence after being cooped up in their homes for almost 2 years. A preschool should also make sure to teach the kids to be independent and help them discover that they are capable enough to do things for themselves.

✓ Parent involvement

For almost two years, kids spent ALL their time with their parents. Hence, they somewhat have a habit of seeing their parents around all the time. Parents surely are overwhelmed with sending their kid to preschool but it is equally upsetting for the kid to leave his/her home & go out.

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School’s back! Here’s How to Prepare Your Preschooler as the World Goes Offline

“No more pencils, no more books,

No more teachers, dirty looks.

Out for summer, out ’til fall,

We might not come back at all. School’s out!”

With the start of the pandemic, these lines by Alice Cooper felt true to a great extent. This song was written to be sung on the last day of school. But to everyone’s disappointment it turned out to be true for a much much longer time for kids who were about to start their journey; the preschoolers!

Schools, day care centres, public spaces, businesses, everything was shut. The pandemic affected each one of us equally, leaving us cooped up in our home. Parents of preschoolers had the most daunting of all tasks, to ensure their kids studied while being at home.

But the drop in covid cases in 2022 led to the reopening of schools and the start of preschool admissions as well. So these same parents are now facing the opposite and equally challenging problem of preparing their little ones for extended periods outside their home, and at school. And while this might be tough, but it is extremely important for parents to provide their kids with opportunities for social interaction & physical activities in their formative years.

After approximately 2 years of isolation & schooling from home, let’s get all of you parents ready for an unprecedented school year.

Introduce proper time management

Because of the stay-at-home regimen, studying, sleeping and eating schedules went haywire. When kids were attending classes online, they were not expected to get up early, dress up and leave for school. They were able to eat or play according to their wishes.

But now with the schools opening up, kids need to be more in control of their team. Hence, parents need to encourage consistency & establish a daily wake-up, getting dressed, breakfast, and family time routine for their kids.  Moreover, they need to monitor their television & internet timings after & before school.

Educate them about the new normal

Playing with friends, sharing lunches with them, will not be the same even after the reopening of schools. It is very crucial for a healthy preschool or day care experience that he/she understands the new school environment.

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