Health Needs and Kindergarten

One of the fears parents often have of sending their children off to kindergarten is the exposure to a public place where the protection of the home is no longer possible. It is true that when your child goes to school with other children, the opportunities for illness and contamination are much more frequent. But the value of being in school with others and the social and educational value mean that we as parents must prepare our children to begin to spend time in a public place and that we do all we can to help them stay healthy and safe each and every day.



Part of preparing your child to stay healthy even in a public venue like kindergarten is to enlist the aid of your child’s pediatrician. She can make sure your kiddo is up to date on shots and that any vulnerabilities are well known. A good check up and getting all necessary shots before school starts will insure your child’s immune system is well equipped to deal with the additional exposure to germs.

But you can also teach your child good hygiene habits at home and engrain them in her lifestyle so they will stick with her even when she is at kindergarten and she doesn’t have you there to protect her. This includes good bathroom habits, an obsession with washing her hands as often as possible, being aware of others who are sniffing and who may not be taking good care of themselves to avoid contamination and using good table habits so the foods your child eats are clean and safe for consumption at lunch.

Good lifestyle habits at home will benefit the child at school as well. This includes a well developed schedule of getting at least eight hours of sleep each day and a regular diet of all the major food groups, particularly fruits and vegetables as these foods will give your child’s body the defenses it will need to ward off illness if there is an exposure to germs. Good dietary habits will be something that is taught as well as enforced at home. You can send your child a lunch to assure that at least she is taking the right kinds of foods. But the best defense is to make sure your child is aware of her own nutritional needs as it pertains to resisting illness so she also eats well when getting food from the cafeteria and stays healthy and regular every day.



You don’t want to send your child to school paranoid or afraid of other people. But some simple rules of how to interact with others in a way that is social but not risky should be part of your training as you raise the child. Just as you know not to eat after someone else using the same utensil, not to eat anything that has been on the floor or not to eat anything that you don’t know the origin of, these are basic health rules that children may not know if they are not taught. So be a conscientious parent and equip your child to avoid hazardous hygienic situations. Even if they are innocent dangers, they are dangers none the less.

The health preparations for kindergarten includes things parents can control at home such as check ups, getting good sleep and nutrition and gong to school healthy and clean. But they also include things you teach your child so she can keep herself safe and healthy even in the middle of a large group of other kids. By giving her these skills from the first day of school going forward, you are doing your job as good parents to assure she is ready for school each and every day from kindergarten all the way through to college graduation.

Getting MOM Ready for Kindergarten

When that first day of kindergarten is approaching, every effort is put against getting the youngster heading out on his or her first big adventure out of the home. There is a lot to do. Between meeting with the teacher, buying clothes and school supplies and preparing the little one for the big challenge of being away from mom and dad for a few hours to a day at school, it’s a big step for the kiddo and for the family.

But what is often overlooked in this rush to prepare for kindergarten is there is a very important participant in the process who also needs to do some preparing. That person is mom.



When you think of it that five years from the birth of that angel from heaven until he or she walks out that door for kindergarten is a pretty intense period of closeness and bonding. For virtually every waking minute of those years, mom is aware of that child, helping her, taking care of her and keeping her safe and healthy every step of the way.

Now the time has come to let that little one be away from home every day for several hours a day and start the road toward independence. Mom wants the right thing for her child and beginning the move to be her own person is the right thing. But there are a lot of emotions and mixed feelings that a mother goes through even in getting the little guy or gal ready for kindergarten much less on the day you let that child go off to start that uphill road toward higher education and success.

One of the people who can do a lot to help mom get ready for this big day is dad. If he is a sensitive dad, he will be aware that there is going to be a lot of anxiety and worry along with good old selfish desire not to let that kiddo leave the house. But dad can be the voice of reason for mom and for that kindergartner as both cope with the new way of life. By gently counseling mom that the road to independence is what will make that child a successful young person and eventually a healthy and well adjusted adult, that logic can filter its way down to the emotional system and start to convince the heart that the head in this case is right.

Other moms who have gone through this before are also a tremendous resource of comfort and advice for how to get through that separation, especially those first few days and weeks when the house seems empty and far too quiet. The friends can counsel that mom on how to fill that time, on things she can do to ease the anxiety like volunteering at the school and on the wonderful victories that the family will celebrate together when the little one comes home from kindergarten full of excitement about what she learned that day.



There are a lot of ways moms can get involved with the school to help out. That energy being felt in emotions that you are going through because of the change can be energies for good to benefit the school and to support your kids while they are in class learning to become good students. There are programs like Moms in Touch and volunteer organizations to benefit the library, to raise funds for new furniture and equipment for the school and to help teachers buys supplies.

If you channel those good energies of love and caring that used to be used only to take care of that one child toward good causes like this, the school will benefit and so will your child’s teacher and her class. So in a way you are continuing to nurture and care for that baby by nurturing the environment that is making her a better person. And that is a good way for mom to get ready for kindergarten before the little one goes off to school and each and every day of this important year in your child’s life as well.

Facing Kindergarten with a Little Help from Her Friends

For a young child, making friends with children her age is probably the most important step in developing relationships outside the family that your little one can do. Psychologists tell us that about the time most children begin to go to kindergarten is also the time when they first begin to understand the separation of the world from family and that relationships outside the family are desirable.



When a child is in infancy, the entire world revolves around mom and dad and her siblings. They want for little else and the love and approval of parents, brothers and sisters is all that baby lives for. But it is about the age she is ready to go to school that the interest in friends separate from family begins to surface in most children. This is helpful because the development of friendships at school will also be the one thing that will most ease the difficulty from the life of living at home and going off to school each day.

You as parents can encourage your child in bonding with youngsters his or her age long before you send that child off to kindergarten. Sometimes we as parents can be a bit protective and see the home as a sanctuary where we want to shelter our children for as long as possible. But while that is a natural emotional reaction to parenting, particularly with your first child, you know intellectually that it is healthy for your youngster to develop friendships outside the home and learn to socialize as soon as she feels ready to do so.

The first week that a child goes to kindergarten is a big step for a child. Anything you can do to get her ready for the change in schedule, in food, in what she will do all day and who she will be around will help your little one adapt and succeed in school from the first day going forward. And for a very young child to whom the security of knowing everyone and everything in the home has been central to her sense of well being, any familiarity that can be introduced to the classroom when you take her off to kindergarten will help establish that classroom as a place of safety as well.



In a way, while you may not have thought much about it, if you have had your child in play groups as an infant, that was a very good start. The more your little one has learned to adapt to new people, to get to know someone different from her and different from mom and dad and her siblings, the less that first step into the world of education will be for her. One thing a child will learn at playgroup is how to be outgoing. This is not a natural instinct in a lot of children. While we are used to youngsters being “shy”, many times that shyness is just insecurity at not knowing how to go up to another child and make friends.

By including as many new people in the playgroup experience and also encouraging your child to interact with others within the family, at church and at the park, that feeling of security that making friends is a fun and rewarding experience will be engrained in a child from their earliest experiences with the world. And it will be a skill that will stay with them for life.

In addition, if you can do a bit of research to find out if a few of your child’s friends from playgroup are going to be in the same class at kindergarten, you might even meet with the other moms before school and go over together. When that small band of friends enters that new world holding hands, they will feel secure in each other and that bond will enable them to open to new people and new experiences. And when your little one is open to learning, their experience in kindergarten will be fun and fulfilling for her and for you because you enabled your child to go to school and make friends every day.

Don’t Sweat Out Kindergarten

Preparations for Kindergarten can get pretty involved. They would include making sure your child has the right clothes, looking into the right schools for your little one and helping the teacher have all the school supplies she needs. But preparing your child emotionally to set out on this big adventure is one of the biggest challenges of preparing for kindergarten.

Actually, the task of making sure your little one goes off to have a great first day at school experience doesn’t start with the child. It starts with you. Children take their clues from mom and dad. And very often it is mom who is on the front lines of this first step of guiding her baby through the many twists and turns of public education. And as much as a child might experience some nervousness and anxiety about the big change that is coming, mom may be the one that feels anxious about this next big step in the life of her child.



There are many emotions that come with parenthood. And unfortunately worry and fear are two that seem to be constant companions of moms who feel it is a big job to protect this precious life that has come to live with you. There is a big secret you should know that will help you tremendously in making sure your child is excited about that first day of school. And that secret is your child should not be able to tell that you are afraid for her or that you have any anxiety at all. If your little one feels you are confident both in the school and in her to go to kindergarten and be a big success, that confidence will translate into a strong self confidence that she can live up to your expectations.

Children take almost all of their emotional cues from their parents, particularly at this early age. If there is a momentary time of insecurity such as a car mishap or a problem with the house, if mom and dad stay calm, the children will stay calm. They trust you to telegraph the right emotional response to change and challenge in life to them and they will mimic you faithfully.

What is both comforting and a bit disturbing about this trait in children is that they can sense if you are afraid or nervous even if your words are confident and reassuring. Children learn how to read body language long before they learn spoken language. So in order for you to telegraph confidence and a sense of excitement about the big change that is coming, you have to feel it too. And that can be difficult if you are experiencing anxiety about being without your child and seeing her head out into the unknowns of life without you being there to protect her.



The earlier you get a grasp on this concept and begin to discuss it with your spouse, the more successful you will be at quieting your own fears and anxieties so you don’t pass them along to your children. There are a number of ways you can help yourself calm down and begin to feel that excitement you want your child to know. You can go to the school and watch a class being conducted so you get a feel for the talents of the teacher and the warm and creative environment in class. Then if you meet the teacher after class and discuss your thoughts with her, that will help a lot.

By thinking through this big change and getting excited about the big adventure your child has ahead, you send a message of fun and excitement to her as she heads out to kindergarten. And that attitude can be the key to her success in this next big phase of her life.

Day One of Kindergarten and No Surprises

Getting prepared for any big new event is all about eliminating the element of surprise. That is why soldiers go to boot camp, why athletes practice for months before competition and why actors rehearse nonstop before show day. And it’s what drives parents like you and me to start months, maybe years before your child goes to kindergarten to remove any element of surprise in what will happen that day and so you know your child is prepared in every possible way for that day she walks into kindergarten.



Some of the aspects of that first day are easy to get ready for. You know your child will need new clothes and probably more clothes because he or she will be at school every day. You don’t want your offspring to be embarrassed by having to wear too many older items. So you might buy them the fashionable kindergartner things so that first day is one of fitting in and looking just like the other kids.

School supplies, medical forms, books and backpacks are all standard fare for the first day of school and they always will be. So you will have ample checklists either given to you by the school or from other parents who have gone through this before. And your own child may become quite opinionated about what he or she will need when that first day of school finally gets here. You will want some level of common sense to go into the preparations for kindergarten, particularly when it comes to the spending but at the same time anticipation is part of the fun so you can afford to give in to it a little bit just to make the event one of excitement and joy and not dread.

When the big day comes, you may even have gone through some drills with the family on getting up, getting dressed, showers, breakfast, making the bed, making lunch and when you need to be out the door to be heading toward the school for the first big day. For you as a parent, the more that first morning feels organized and like a well oiled machine, the more you feel like you have removed every element of surprise from the morning.



Of course, it’s always smart to have some flexibility in your ability to respond to crisis. Even with the most well oiled machine and best preparations possible, it’s within the range of possibility something could go wrong. As you move into the final exit for school, keep in mind that there is an emotional element of this moment and your new kindergartner is watching you for how you react to sudden change.

So be prepared to react calmly and maybe with some humor if something goes wrong. Remember, if you are late or, god forbid, your child doesn’t make it at all to that first day, she can still show up on the second day. Kindergarten classes and their teachers and administrators are well acquainted with the jitters and things that happen to parents so don’t panic if something goes wrong. By not freaking out if there is flat tire, a sudden outbreak of nerves related hives or some other “crisis”, you are teaching your child to handle crisis when she is at school and you are not there.

So model flexibility and adaptability. After all, that is what sending your child to kindergarten is all about for your child. And if you show your little one that being prepared is always the right thing to do but being able to handle change is just as important, she will be well trained to take on kindergarten in good form and to go on to much success in first grade, second grade and throughout her academic career.