The First Day of Kindergarten – Reducing Your Child's Stress
"With any change that we experience in our lives, natural emotions such as anxiety can emerge. For children, this becomes more pronounced when starting at a new school," says Michelle Kees, Ph.D., a specialist in children's anxiety issues at The University of Michigan Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic. Most kids can overcome their fears with the help of a parent, she says. Experts agree that in addition to helping your child learn basic skills such as the ABC's and counting, a key responsibility is to help your child visualize what will happen at kindergarten. The important thing is to build your child's expectations in ways that enable him or her to feel confident that they can handle the new experiences that kindergarten will bring.
The Blue Lake take on it:
We highly recommend Kindergarten Countdown – a short (18 minute) video from Educational Productions. This Oregon-based team has created award-winning video training materials that are widely used in school systems throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Kindergarten Countdown DVD follows real kids through a typical kindergarten day. The University of Michigan Health System Bulletin on reducing the stress of returning to school also has tips for elementary and middle school students.
A year ago, President Bush created a National Mathematics Advisory panel, and earlier this year, they released a preliminary report that was quickly criticized for being a summary of the Panel's mission and process, and devoid of recommendations for improving math skills. Do you need to wait for the government to tell you how to help your child with math? Every small child has a grasp of basic math, for instance: "More!" Give one child two cookies when his sister gets three, and instantly the inequality is noted. You don't have to wait to help your child build on these natural observations.
No doubt you saw the press coverage of a government study release last month showing that more time spent in child care centers before the age of 5 resulted in a slight but measurable increase (1%) in "problem" behaviors (interrupting, teasing, bullying) through sixth grade. There were positive correlations – child care kids had higher vocabulary scores. The study results entered the long-running debate over the pros and cons of child care. One thing is clear – social skills need to be considered as part of the early education we give our children, and parents need to assess potential caregivers on this attribute. 
First off, it's fun. That's the most important thing. If it's not fun, the rest doesn't matter. I am quoting Wayne Gould, the one-man team at sudoku.com. If it has not already caught on at your house, check out Sudoku. It's a very simple concept. Fill a 9 by 9 grid with numbers 1 through 9. No number can be used twice in any row, column, or 3 by 3 square. It's easy for kids to get addicted to Sudoku, and that's a good thing. As Gould points out, Sudoku is one of the few puzzles and games that reward children for using applied logic. Sudoku encourages children to apply principles of deduction and induction – skills they don't often get to exercise. It sharpens their powers of concentration and reasoning.
Lots of products promise that they can build your child's cognitive skills. The adjective "cognitive" is defined by Merriam Webster dictionary as "relating to or involving intellectual activity". Examples of cognitive behavior are "thinking, reasoning, or remembering". In other words, cognitive behavior is the natural behavior exhibited by young children. Cognitive theory says that young children build mental maps to make sense in their environments. An experience that is repeated fits easily into the child's mental map and that's cognitive structure. If the experience is different or new, the child's mind will alter his or her cognitive structure to accommodate the new conditions. This way, the child erects more and more adequate cognitive structures.
A number of schools and HeadStart programs are adopting new digital and paper methods of determining whether preschoolers are developing reading skills at an appropriate pace. The purpose is to identify and attack the problems early, when they are easiest to correct. "Once a child falls behind, it's very difficult to catch up," says Dr. Angela Fawcett of the University of Sheffield in England. Fawcett led a study that found that a small amount of extra tutoring given to preschoolers with language delays-- an hour a week in small groups for 10 weeks -- boosted their skills. The gain exceeded what a year's worth of remediation at age 7 or 8 would produce, she said.
Well before a child learns to form letters with a marker or pencil, she has taken many steps toward learning to write. Children need many opportunities to use their hands to do various things before they can successfully print letters. Squeezing play dough, building a tower of legos, stringing beads and completing a knobbed puzzle are some of the ways children practice for later writing. A child who shows no interest in writing or who doesn’t have proper pencil grip is probably not ready to do so. Children enjoy learning a new skill only when they are ready for it. Getting ready is just as important as mastering the skill.
