Image by Julie Rose from Pixabay

 

Embarking on a Kindergarten Adventure

Hey there, wonderful Creekside Parents and Caregivers!

It’s that time again when the tiny tots we’ve watched over in our cozy preschool nest start spreading their wings for the giant leap into the boundless skies of Kindergarten. Once again, another handful of our Creekside Kids are outgrowing us. We’re sad to see them go but so excited to watch them grow into the people they are meant to be– people who will make a better world someday.  We look forward to seeing them on elementary school breaks and possibly next summer too!

Amidst the excitement, it’s perfectly natural for our little sprouts to feel a flutter of butterflies in their tummies. Various people in their lives (teachers, minders, strangers, and family members) may be adding to their anxieties by telling your child that the differences between preschool/child care and Kindergarten are significant, to the point that your child may have anxieties under the surface about this substantial change in their lives.  Most children have worries about leaving the nest and they may engage in unusual (often negative) behaviors.

 

In last year’s blog, we discussed the reluctance kids have to face the change and how to head it off; this year, we’re here to discuss what to do once the anxieties manifest themselves. Let’s chat about the signs of Kindergarten Anxiety and how we, as their cheer squad, can ease the transition and turn those jitters into joyful jumps! 

 

Spotting the Signs of Kindergarten Jitters

First off, let’s play a little game of detective and look for clues that our kiddos might be feeling anxious about their new adventure.  Your child may engage in a mix of these behaviors:

 

The Case of the Clingy Koala: Is your little one suddenly glued to you like a koala to a eucalyptus tree? Extra clinginess might mean they’re seeking comfort as they face the unknown.

The Mystery of the Mood Swings: One minute, they’re sunny as a beach day; the next, they’re stormier than a raincloud. Moods changing faster than a chameleon’s colors could signal inner worries.

The Puzzle of the Popped-off Playtime: Stepping away from playtime faster than a jack-in-the-box? This could mean school thoughts are crowding out play.

The Riddle of the Restless Nights: If your cutie is tossing and turning like a pancake at breakfast, it may be those kindergarten thoughts baking in their dream oven.

But don’t panic about their anxieties. With a sprinkle of parenting magic and a little communication, the worst of these fears can be overcome. 

 

Many children feel an unrecognized sense of grief or even rejection at being forced to leave their comfortable nest of the preschool/child care environment. Some children are confused and may feel a sense of abandonment by their teachers and the school.  Some feel more loss about not seeing their current friends and worry about making new friends. Being welcomed back to the old stomping grounds for short visits helps ease the underlying feelings of rejection and loss of connection in being made to leave preschool/child care for Kindergarten.  Creekside Kids offers drop-in care on school breaks for our graduates which is a great way to ease the emotional transition.  

 

Helping Hands for a Smooth Kindergarten Transition

Chatter Matters: Let’s make “talk time” our prime time! Sit down for a cup of pretend tea and chat about what Kindergarten might be like. Knowing more can turn a shadowy and uncertain future into a welcome change. 

Playdate the Anxiety Away: Arrange playdates with future classmates. New friends before school starts can make that first day feel like a reunion rather than a mystery guest party.

Role Play, Hooray!: You be the teacher, and they’ll be the student (or the other way around – we love a good twist in the tale!). Act out a school day to show that Kindergarten is just another stage for them to be the star.  

Visit the Kingdom of Kindergarten: If it’s okay with the new learning palace, take a royal tour of the Kindergarten grounds during the summer for play and exploration time. Knowing where they’ll hang their backpack to learn and play can help the children realize it is similar to their preschool experience. Going with them reminds them that there’s nothing to be afraid of and that you are always watching over them.

Routine, Routine, Routine Turns the Scary into Serene: Establish and practice a solid morning routine that would make the movie Groundhog Day jealous. Consistency can turn the Great Unknown into the Great “I’ve Got This!”

Hang On Once the Train Leaves the Station: Let’s lace up our adventure boots and help our kids take this next grand step together. After all, every new chapter is just a chance to add more delightful stories to our children’s book of life. 

If you’d like to discuss a place at Creekside Kids for your kids, we invite you to click this embedded link to schedule an appointment. Let’s get to know each other! Like us on Facebook to follow our stories for news and updates. We’re located at 1201 W Cheyenne Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80906, and we can be reached at (719) 635-9111. Our new hours of operation are 6:45 a.m. until 5:45 p.m., Monday through Friday.

part 2 of a 2-part series

It’s hard to prepare kids for their next step in the face of an uncertain future. And while child care and preschool have been around for a long time, it’s challenging when our times make it harder to raise our kids to be happy, healthy people. 

Since the Pandemic, Creekside Kids has witnessed the extraordinary effect that months of isolation have had on the growth and development of children in our care. We talked in January’s blog about the effect that isolation has had on our kids’ social and emotional development, which we are still learning about as we continue to learn alongside the children of COVID-19. 

One area we have yet to consider is the effect that the pandemic has had on their educational development and their preparedness for the exciting and potentially challenging move to kindergarten in their fifth year. This month, we’re examining that process, how the pandemic has affected it, and what we as co-learners and you as parents can do to ease the shock of the transition.

It’s very true that 3-year-old and 4-year-old children are still forming the toolsets they need to be ready for the next 13+ years of education: being away from their parents, coping with stresses and conflicts, and learning as they go to adapt and thrive. 

The Pandemic greatly affected the students who are in kindergarten or grades 1-3.  Schools across the nation have seen a dramatic rise in mental health issues in young children and a dramatic delay in academic skills.  However, our focus is on the current pre-K students who are the younger brothers and sisters of those significantly affected elementary students.

This “second generation” of COVID-19 students is, thankfully, less affected than their older siblings. They are, however, facing their own set of obstacles as they begin their academic careers. While fewer of these kids have had to deal with wearing masks, they have weathered the ripple effects these changes have sent through our society. Our current students at Creekside Kids are coping with enhanced rules for cleanliness and sanitary practices as well as learning many of the social/emotional skills that they would normally have learned in their first three years. 

Many of our kids have had difficulty adjusting to the new rhythms of pre-kindergarten due to a lack of social development during their first three years of life. We have invented new rituals and rhythms to teach them to work as a group towards mutual goals and to develop their social/emotional skills. Confronting new norms requires us to adapt our efforts to guide our students through the experience and we are seeing great growth in our students. We are truly seeing that the more we can meet the children where they are, the more they’ll succeed.  This group of little ones will have a much better educational experience than their older siblings.  

If you’d like to discuss a place at Creekside Kids for your kids, we invite you to click this embedded link to schedule an appointment. Let’s get to know each other! Like us on Facebook to follow our stories for news and updates. We’re located at 1201 W Cheyenne Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80906, and we can be reached at (719) 635-9111. Our new hours of operation are 6:45 am until 5:45 pm, Monday through Friday.

Another October means pumpkin spice, autumn splendor, and, of course, another spooky Halloween! Halloween will be a forgotten legend to many kids kept at home due to COVID-19 concerns. Older siblings will have told them of going out door-to-door in a fun costume and returning with a bag full of sweet delights. 

Most adults know that Halloween is a Christian holiday (All Hallow’s Eve), formed in the British Isles when Christianity was being brought to the world and the Celts were absorbed into the expanding Roman empire. It replaced Samhain, the pagan festival of the end of the harvest and the turning of the season to Winter. Pope Gregory I looked for a way to transition these Celtic holidays into Christianity. The result was All Saint’s Day or All Hallows Day, a holiday to commemorate the saints of Christianity, and the night before would be All Hallows Eve, allowing the pagan traditions to continue and to be absorbed into Christianity.

But did you know that almost every culture in history has their own form of Halloween? It dates back as far as ancient Egypt, when families would have a meal with their deceased family members as the guests of honor. It seems that Halloween is a universal theme, that stems from very human concerns.

There are two main reasons why Halloween has such a common thread. The first reason is that it takes place at the end of the harvest. This is the time of the year when plants and vegetation begin to wither and decay. It gives us a moment to say goodbye to autumn and prepare for the coming of winter. It’s also about acknowledging our fears– specifically, our fear of death. It seems that almost every culture has some way of dealing with their fear of death and the turn of the seasons.

For kids, the changing of the seasons is easy to understand, but death is a bigger concept than they may yet know. They understand that some movies are scary, and that some scary movies are too scary for their age.  They understand their fears and that sometimes fear gets the better of even the adults.

Talking to children and introducing them to Halloween needn’t be difficult. Kids talk to each other, and they are extraordinarily keyed into signals. Black cats, skeletons, and Jack-o-Lanterns are early associations with Halloween. So are costumes, when they begin to learn how even adults are culturally allowed to wear costumes on Halloween! 

At Creekside, we’re big proponents of costumes and make-believe, and given that Halloween is both an annual rite of passage and a bit of fun play, we love it! But we also appreciate another value of Halloween: dealing with fears. Just like those scary movies kids are so eager to watch, Halloween is like a vaccination of fear, allowing children to experience a specific rush of fear in a controlled, supervised, and safe way. 

If your child is beginning to ask questions about Halloween or trick-or-treating, take the opportunity to build a dialogue with them. Ask what they know about it and gently explain the difference between real dangers and imaginary monsters. Talk about the importance of staying with your parents, not running off, and not eating candy until you get home, to prevent dangers.

It’s also helpful to talk about expectation and privilege. The demand-and-get nature of trick-or-treating can confuse a child if a household is not Halloween-friendly or is a little too scary. It’s also the first hurdle in getting through the holiday season where getting and giving are a confusing system for a child to navigate. But by answering questions, explaining how reciprocation works in communities, and talking about giving for the pleasure of giving (without measuring it in what we receive), we can teach a vital lesson for the holidays.

If you’d like to discuss a place at Creekside Kids for your kids, we’d like to invite you to click this embedded link to schedule an appointment. Let’s get to know each other! Like us on Facebook to follow our stories for news and updates. We’re located at 1201 W Cheyenne Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80906, and we can be reached at (719) 635-9111. Our new hours of operation are 6:45 am until 5:45 pm, Monday through Friday.

 

Summertime is here! As our kids turn to wading pools, swimming pools and creeks to cool down this hot summer, it’s the right time to consider the dangers; specifically, the threat of drowning, and understanding the missed indicators of danger to your child. Drowning is thought to be a loud, noisy, splashy moment; in reality, most drownings are quiet and sudden.

Understandably, drowning is something we worry about, but also believe we can prevent with casual supervision. But statistically speaking, children younger than one-year-old are more likely to drown at home. Without the proper training, it’s not easy for a parent to recognize the signs that their child is in trouble. A splashing, playful kid can look just as in danger as one in trouble if you can’t read the signs.

The signs that a child is drowning are mostly about their posture in the water and are very subtle. They can happen right in front of people who don’t know what to look for. Here are the common signs of a child in water distress:

• Gasping — children with clear lungs can speak as they swim; a gasping child may be taking on water and struggling for breath.
• Mouth — if your child’s mouth is at water level, that can be an indication that the child is having trouble keeping their head above water. If your child’s mouth is hovering at the water level, your child may be in need of rescue.
• Arms — if a child’s arms are out to the side, it’s an indication that they aren’t actively trying to swim. If the arms seem to flap like wings, it may be an attempt to signal for help that is being thwarted by the water overtaking them.
• Head — when a child’s head is tilted back as opposed to level, that’s a possible sign they may be in trouble and taking on water. Equally, it can just be floating– if the child is active, they are likely okay; if they are still with a tilted-back head, they may need assistance.
• Vertical — if your child is vertical in the water, there isn’t enough motion to suggest they are in control of their swimming and may be in trouble.

A child with a vertical body with arms out to the side and a mouth at the water line is definitely in need of assistance. There are also dangers that can come after a swim: dry drowning and secondary drowning. 

Dry drowning means that you can drown far from any body of water. You can drown in a gulp of water that causes your child’s vocal chords to constrict. Water never reaches the lungs, but neither does  the oxygen they need to survive.

Secondary drowning is when water does get into the lungs, and takes up residence, leading to fluid build up and death. A child saved from drowning in a body of water can still go to sleep and later drown in their own fluids.

We can never provide absolute safety where swimming is concerned. Swimming with trained lifeguards on duty is the safest way to take your child swimming. As parents, we need to have awareness and vigilance, and teach our friends and kids to look out for each other, too. Please feel free to pass this blog on to all of your friends with kids who enjoy swimming! We want this summer to be safe for you and your kids. 

If you’d like to discuss a place at Creekside Kids for your kids, we’d like to invite you to click this embedded link to schedule an appointment. Let’s get to know each other! Like us on Facebook to follow our stories for news and updates. We’re located at 1201 W Cheyenne Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80906, and we can be reached at (719) 635-9111. Our new hours of operation are 6:45 am until 5:45 pm, Monday through Friday.