关于怎样更好适应daycare的思考

Recently I saw quite a few moms posting about their kids starting daycare, especially my Qingjia’s daughter ruru, and it got me thinking about what is the better way to help kids adapt to daycare quickly and less painfully.

 

Some caregivers told me that it was better to drop the new kid whole day in the daycare even at the first day. By doing this, it would help the new kid transition to daycare life sooner. Also parents should not stick around for too long.

 

It is an interesting top and I can’t help give it some thoughts. From my experience and my understanding, I don’t agree with the first statement. I agree with the second one that parents should not linger around for too long. As an adult, we all know what a new environment meant to us such as moving to a new place, starting a new job, etc. I remembered the first several weeks at my new job. It was very stressful dealing with new boss, new colleagues, new projects, and new corporate culture. Almost everything is new. I think everyone would agree that the boss should not put too much pressure on new employees and expect them to well adapt to the new position in a week. Too much pressure, too much expectation, and too much workload would back fire. Same things apply to the young kids. They just arrive at a brand new environment, especially with those kids cared by grandparents and nannies before, and you expect them to experience so many new things in the first day?  I think that would be too overwhelming for them. Thinking about it, diaper change is different, how to eat lunch is different, how to nap is different, how to play is different, and most of all they don’t like strangers to care for them.  Sure if you want a kid to cry for two or three weeks, eventually he/she will stop crying and accept the reality. But that does not mean it is the best way to let a kid transition to daycare life.

 

That is why I think gradual enrolment is a better way. The way to do it is letting your child spend 2-3 hrs at daycare for the first couple of days around the same time of a day, then increasing the time to half a day at the end of the first week. Send your kid to daycare everyday. The idea is to let kid be familiar with the daycare life gradually. At the second week, if you think your kid is making good progress, you can let she/he stay the whole day. I think daycares should care about what is better for your kids. You as parents know your kids better. Some kids might do well that way, but more sensitive and needy kids will suffer a lot. My son’s daycare well acknowledges that a kid at certain age might have stranger anxiety or separation anxiety, and strongly recommends gradual enrollment program without cost to parents. I think this program helped my son a lot. He did not cry that much. If without this program, he should have cried a lot more based on his character.

 

I mentioned in my previous post that if new kids cry, most caregivers will not do much for them, some teachers try to comfort them but failed because they treat the teachers as strangers thus could not be comforted, so the teachers stop trying. Only when a caregiver truly likes your child, she will do extra for your child. Otherwise they just go by the rules and business. I do not say caregiver does nothing to help your child to daycare life. In fact they have done quite a lot to help. I think it is also parents’ judgment as to what kind of enrolment program suits your child the best.

 

I totally agree, parents should not stick around for too long at daycare. It will prevent your child to form a bond with the caregiver. The sooner the bond is formed, the better.