When you register your child into child care, it can be exciting and daunting. Not just for you, but it could also be a change that is scary for your child to anticipate. While children look forward to new opportunities, stepping into an unfamiliar environment can definitely make them want to step back rather than forward. On your child’s first week, you begin to say goodbye to your child. Will they cling to you, cry, run away, stomp their feet? As a parent, seeing your child in emotional turmoil will definitely pull at your heart strings. So, is child care really worth it if the transition can be so hard?
The answer to that question is a personal one. Each family has a reason and goal behind registering their child(ren) into child care. In our January 2022 post [click here], we talked about how transitions are beneficial to our children. But the benefits of child care go farther than just mastering transitions. The support of emotional, social and physical growth is also important for later success in learning.
Despite the inevitable transition into a child care program, every experience thereon out provides growth for your child. Strengthening the trust between parent and child during pick-up day after day, arguing with friends then learning to share and working together and a variety of gross motor activities that allow for physical challenges and achievements. With the culmination of challenges in child care, your child is given the best opportunity to reach their full potential. Transitions of change will always be difficult for most adults and children, however, the outcome through a supportive and encouraging environment most often always yields success.
Your partner-in-learning,
Fiona Abbas-Lee
