How to Prepare for Kindergarten With Your Children
How to Prepare for Kindergarten With Your Children
Young couples begin their journey as parents with a babe in arms and newborn hopes. They sit back in admiration as they observe their young child’s curious exploration of the world around them. And somewhere between the first full night’s sleep and the last folded diaper, parents begin to ask the question, “How will I educate my child?”
When it comes to education, these are anxious days for parents, and now more than ever I hear thoughtful, articulate young couples express their deep desire to raise children who are just, compassionate, and capable of influencing their world for good.
The fearful question, “How do I get my child ready to face the challenges of this life?” is often masked behind, “How will I help my child prepare for kindergarten?” The answer to both is almost the same.
Sometimes in our anticipation of the future, we lose sight of the opportunities of the moment, and these early days before children go to school are rich opportunities to lay the groundwork for a lifetime of learning and living.
As a young mother of five children, I discovered the wisdom of Charlotte Mason, a British educator (1842-1923), when my oldest was a newborn. In Mason’s books, I found much practical advice for early homelife with children. Later, as a leader of an Ambleside School implementing her methods, I saw the benefit of those ideas in the classroom as I observed scores of children enter kindergarten, finish 8th grade, and go on to high school, college and careers.
Charlotte Mason has a wealth of theory and practice to answer the question, “How do I get my child ready to face the challenges of this life?” More immediate, but just as profound, ‘How will I help my child prepare for kindergarten?”
Here are some of her tips for parenting children before the age of five to set you on your way:
Value a schedule.
We are all creatures of order and habit, even if our order is “do my own thing” and my habit is “I do what I want.” Mason believed that we could ease life for our children in their adult years by “laying down the rails” for good living in their early days. A schedule is the best place to start that process with a young child.
In the classroom, the routine and schedule of the school day brings a predictable pattern and peace into the atmosphere, and the same thing happens in homes when a schedule is in place. Children thrive when there is little effort of decision around simple practices of living -- times for waking and sleeping, eating, playing, resting, and routines attached to those rhythms in the day.
A schedule has benefits far beyond making life at home sane and manageable. It opens young minds to the idea of impersonal law and duty in a gentle and unobtrusive manner, which later bears fruit in obedience to authority. There is no “silver bullet” to responsive and obedient children, but a set routine and schedule go a long way toward forming a dutiful heart.
Share work together.
From the earliest days, children want to know they belong to a broader community. Working alongside a parent in a meaningful task is their first encounter with worthy vocation. Finding connection and joy while working invites a young child into a lifelong enjoyment of effort and responsibility.
Children delight in the adult duties of the household and want to be invited into the routine duties of daily living. Folding the laundry, putting away silverware, emptying trash cans, chopping vegetables, and pushing the mower can become joyful places to connect and form happy memories of steady effort and visible results.
Spend time outdoors.
In the wide open spaces of outdoor exploration, children begin the road to academic scholarship. The habit of attention -- the most foundational for learning -- is naturally cultivated when a young child follows a crawling insect into its hole or a floating leaf into the rapids. In unmanicured spaces, where there are trees to climb, mud to squeeze and acorns to collect, young children become scientists, and curiosity for “why?” lays the groundwork for all meaningful lessons from school books in their future days.
It is a well spent afternoon to take children out of doors, rest under a tree, and let them run free in exploration and curiosity. Delight and wonder, fresh air and strong limbs, rest for the soul, communion with God are all good fruits of time in the field.
Enjoy worthy books.
Finally, enjoy reading a worthy book. Common joy around a book builds shared experience and relationships. Books become associated with contentment and connection when parents read aloud a worthy book to a young child.
In the evening reading time, parents have both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is in choosing a book which both child and parent can find delight, which guards the experience from tired irritations. The opportunity is in sharing books that whet an appetite for good literature and snuggles that form memories of happy reading times together.
At the end of the day, as you help your child prepare for kindergarten, you’re really getting your child ready for a full and meaningful life. All humans need daily doses of duty, connection, curiosity and shared joy to thrive. A few careful years spent in laying this foundation is a small price to pay for a long life of rich living and relating.
Parents “owe a thinking love” to children, Mason said, and taking time to consider those early years of bringing up children is a love of great sacrifice ... and the beginning of all education.
Mason said it well:
““The question is not––how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education––but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?””
