Early Learning & Daycare Center
Friends are flowers that make our lives fun and worthwhile. Building and maintaining friendships is very important and is a habit that should be nurtured in kids during their early years. It is at that tender age that children play a lot with other kids and learn the give and take of relationships.
Daycare Center is one place where a child’s social development is enhanced. However, it is not always easy for children to make friends, especially in a new environment, and this is one fact that many parents tend to overlook.
Some kids tend to be too shy to make friends while others are just not comfortable letting other kids into their space. That is why you should support your child in developing the skills required to deal with childhood friendships. Here is how to go about that.
Teach Them Communication Skills
For your child to be able to make friends, ones that will last, it is crucial that you teach them some communication skills. Teach them to politely introduce themselves to other kids.
Teach them the importance of turn-taking and listening whenever they are having a conversation with others. Your child should also think and learn appropriate things to say so as to have a balanced discussion/conversation with his/her peers.
Nurture Their Ability To Empathize
At daycare centers, your child will meet different children with different characters. It can really be difficult for a child to cope with all the different personalities exhibited by their peers. It is for this reason that you need to teach them to be conscious and control their negative emotions while at the same time understanding the emotions and perspectives of others.
Be Available
When your child starts developing friendships and relations at the daycare, it is very important that you be there to listen to them. Ask them how their day in the daycare was and who are the children they interacted with and how that went.
By so doing, you even get to understand the characters of the other children your child likes- and this could further help you understand your child even more.
By listening to them, you will also get to know if they are finding it hard to make friends and you can pick it from here.
Encourage Friendships That Are Important To Your Child
If your child makes friends that make them happy and joyous, encourage that. When kids are around friends who make them happy and comfortable, they tend to be more open and even get adventurous and explorative.
In case you realise that some friendships are making your kid unhappy and stressful, you ought to move and cut it immediately. Some kids can be mean, intimidating and manipulative and you do not want your child around such characters.
Teach Them About Winning And Losing
Life will not always be a winning affair for your child. As such, it is important that from a tender age, you coach them about winning and losing graciously.
Make them understand that in case they are playing with other kids, sometimes things will not always go their way. Make them understand that there will always be another time to try.
By doing this, you nurture your child not to be a sore loser and they also get to make strong friendships as they understand it is not always about them.
Talk To Their Caregivers
Daycare teachers have a lot of knowledge and experience in nurturing and encouraging child friendships. So make it a habit to consult and ask for advice whenever you are unsure. The teachers also tend to understand the characters of different children and how to handle them. Involving them is a great idea because these are individuals who spend the entire day with your child.
Encouraging your child to develop and maintain healthy friendships is not particularly easy, but it is doable and also very rewarding. Befriending other parents, constantly consulting the caregivers and making it your business to teach your child about social behaviour and issues definitely make this fun and easy. Once you get actively involved in your child’s social life, it becomes an eye-opener even for you as you are able to view the world from a child’s viewpoint and nothing is as sweet as that.