Sending your child to preschool or kindergarten can be a daunting decision to make, given everything else that surrounds motherhood. There are a lot of details that you need to put into consideration in order to settle on the best preschool. Read on to see why you need to take your time when looking for a preschool for your child.
1. It Forms the Foundation for Their Future
The preschool to which you take your child will play an important role in their future education. It will determine how they respond to different settings and activities in the classrooms they find themselves in grade school, so you need to look for the best preschool with this in mind. Rather than have to repeat most of what they should have been taken through in the future, they will be able to carry on successfully through future grades. This is compounded by the fact that a child without any early childhood education is up to 25% more likely to drop out of school. Make sure that you don’t predispose your child to this by choosing the right preschool for them.
2. It Can Nurture Their Creativity
When you choose a well-rounded preschool for your child, they can develop creativity and thrive in creative environments in the future. With this in mind, look for a preschool that allows children to learn and experience new things rather than forcing them to take rigid paths. The best preschool should allow them to experiment and nurture their creativity, and this will enable them to do well in the future regardless of the path that they follow.
3. They Should Learn Responsibility
When you take your child to the right preschool, they should learn responsibility. This is both in terms of doing things for themselves and making decisions. They should see how their actions and decisions impact others around them, so it should be an environment that fosters this in a safe way. Given that 87% of private schools have 300 students or less, it should be easy for teachers and caregivers to regulate the children in their care without being overbearing. If you can find a school in which this is prioritized, you will have helped set your child on the right path.
4. Caregivers Should Be Qualified
Another reason why it’s important to spend time choosing a preschool is that you need to look for one that has qualified staff. Everyone in the school should be aware of how to deal with small children and provide them with the care and guidance that they need. Rather than being fast to punish children who misbehave or break the rules, the teachers should know how to turn such instances into opportunities for the children to learn.
5. It Can Promote Language, Math, and Cognitive Skills
Finally, the right preschool can help put down the right foundation for your child to grasp languages and math more easily. It should be an environment in which they’re able to learn new vocabulary and interact freely with different aspects of the languages they learn. It was found, for instance, that children who attended full-day programs did better on literacy tests and mathematics than those in 2.5 to three-hour public preschool programs. These gains in achievement continued throughout to at least the end of first grade. In the right preschool, your child will also develop their cognitive skills and become better prepared to go through further education.
These five reasons should motivate you to take your time when looking for a preschool for your child. A lot depends on the decision you make, so it’s not advisable to take this decision lightly.
