Tips to Parents from Your Pre-Schooler
by Linda Caldwell, Director, Lollipop University Day Care, Fairview, PA

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• Be positive! Don't tell me that I'll have a great time at child care and then tell grandma that you feel guilty about enrolling me. I puck up on your feelings very easily! if you feel great about leaving... I'll feel great about staying.
• Don't mind me if the first day I love it and the second day I hate it! It's a new place, new kids, new adults, and new schedule. Keep my schedule consistent and I'll be fine.
  
• When you drop me off in the morning, give me a kiss and a hug and tell me you'll see me later. WHen you do, I feel secure and know hen you'll be coming back. If I'm crying, my teachers will hold me. They love me, too, and want the best for me.
  
• Please take time to look at my art work. I work long and hard at it all day while you are at work. If you do not care, I will not be enthusiastic about creating it. And if I see it laying around in the trash at home, I will lose my creativity!
  
• Spend time with me after we get home at night. I know that you're tired and I'm full of energy, because I took a nap! Let's go for a walk after dinner. I need time with my mom and dad, too.
  
• Sometimes I would like it if you would talk to me and explain to me what is going to happen to me, before it happens. Tell me what day I am going to start child carte, and what I am going to do there all day long. It would help to lessen my fears. Point out the center to me as we ride by, so I can be excited about it.
  
• Give me the choice to do things by myself. I'm littler and slower than you are, but I can do things all by myself. I can get dressed by myself, and I can pick what breakfast cereal I want to eat. making decisions can make me feel very important.
  
• Sometimes I don't want to go to child care. Sometimes you don't want to go to work! But after we both get there, we're fine.
  
• Don't be mad at me if, after I pass that "adjustment period," I don't want to go home with you when you come to pick me up. Be glad that my caregivers are wonderful people who make me want to stay.
  
• Please don't feel guilty about leaving me! I know that you love me and that you would not do anything bad for me! I also know that when I start kindergarten I will be well adjusted socially, and mentally I will be asking questions way ahead of the other children. Why? because you had the insight to put me with other children at a young age when I learned new things and met new friends.
  
  Thanks!
  
  YOUR CHILD

Excerpted with permission from Child Care
Information Exchange, P.O. Box 2890, Redmond, WA 98073.
T: 800/221-2864

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