Ah, to be the social butterfly in preschool… that’s the dream.
No, truly, it is.
Preschool is no joke. Think of it this way… it’s hard enough for you to make friends at your age even though you have had decades of experience behind you… at least I know it is for me.
Now take your child, who’s never been taught social norms because hello, they’re 2. They’ve never been in a class context before and don’t have you sticking around, and never made friends on their own, because again… they’re 2.
But all of a sudden they’re thrown in… off the deep end… into preschool… and expected to make it all happen.
So yes, to be able to navigate appropriate social decorum in preschool is a pretty big win and a huge necessity. Let me tell you why.
1. Fosters Friendships
The most obvious reason kids need to conquer socializing in preschool is to make new friends. It’s important to create relationships, foster these connections and grow rapport with their classmates as the year goes one. This will be the beginning steps of your child learning how to make friends in the world for years to come and yes, it begins in preschool.
But okay, let’s step back a bit, I am not saying that your child has to be the social butterfly of the classroom. But being able to work in group context such as center time, participate in read alouds, and engage in show and tell is a big deal. They’re only going to be able to do this if they take the first step and begin getting comfortable with the other children around them. The more they are comfortable with their classmates, the more comfortable they’ll be in participating and the more success they’ll have in preschool.
2. Teaches Behavioral Norms
The next reason is that their preschool setting is the first non home environment where they’ll learn how to appropriately act with other kids their age. This is what I mean…
If your child wants something that the other kids are playing with they might lean towards grabbing if they haven’t learned how to socialize appropriately yet, enter turn-taking.
Or perhaps your child is more physical, well, they’re going to learn quite quickly that we don’t hit, bite, kick, push, etc. This will make our preschool friends upset and therefore not want to foster that relationship. This will not a happy toddler make.. why you ask? Because we’re social beings by nature. Your child will want to revert to number 1 which is fostering those relationships. And quite frankly they need to learn the right behaviors to help them do that.
3. Builds Confidence
The next reason is that by socializing.. your child’s personal confidence will grow, and will do so exponentially. Think about it even now, if you make a good first impression whether in an interview, party, event, etc. you tend to feel good about yourself. And you tend to feel less anxious going into that setting the next time.
Well it’s the same for preschool. The more your child is able to make friends, grow those friendships, the more confident they’ll feel and become. This will follow through with them not only in preschool but as they get older as well. The ability to be social or have some level of social aptitude definitely helps with self-confidence and preschool is all about teaching self-confidence.
4. Develops Autonomy
Speaking of… not only do social skills help build your toddlers confidence outwardly, but it also helps boost their confidence within themselves to do other things too. Once your confidence begins growing, that spills over to other areas of your being. For your child, this is a major factor in hitting their developmental milestones at their tiny little age.
Let’s outline the journey:
Toddler learns social skills —-> toddler makes friends ——> friends build toddler’s confidence —-> self-confidence begins to grow as well= leading to strong overall autonomy
Are you still with me? …
Good. Let’s keep going!
5. Builds Self Help Skills
Now that your child is becoming a fast paced, high functioning, life of the party, social butterfly right before your eyes, let’s see what else social skills helps do. By developing these skills and gaining more and more confidence in their day, you’ll slowly see other areas of their development progress. One such area is their self-help skills and this is HUGE in preschool. A lot of what makes preschool so crucial in the beginning stages of your child’s development is the ability to learn how to function (within reason) as independently as possible.
By your child learning new social cues they’ll begin to get that confidence to do things on their own now or at least try. And with the growth of their new friendships, they’ll begin to mimic those friends behaviors more and more (let’s hope mostly the good ones).
For example, if your child see’s Tommy washing his hand by himself, then your child is going to want to try that. If your child see’s Sophia putting away her stuff independently, then your child might want to try that, and so on and so on. Leading by example is an awesome tool we use in preschool all the time but it becomes so much more applicable when your child considers that person a friend.
6. Decreases Anxiety
The last thing I am going to discuss in this post is another very obvious reason. Everything above has been all about the positives socializing can bring to your little one and will bring. This one will help to protect against something that could be significantly negative for them.
The idea of anxiety in preschool can seem funny to some but it is a very real thing. It is no laughing matter and it is what teachers try to work against very often. Let’s put this into perspective, your child is entering a new environment for the very first time, parents do not stay (so that safety blanket is ripped away from them), and there is a class of 10 or 12 other students just staring at them. On top of that they need to learn a whole new routine, they have no friends, and they have no idea when mom or dad will be back. Bring on the full-blown melt-down.
For some this separation anxiety lasts only a few weeks but for others it can last for an extended period of time. And if your little one isn’t making friends they’re only going to continue feeling more alone. I once had a student who played with only 2 other boys in the class and whenever we called on him to participate he would shove his entire fist in his mouth. I’m not kidding.
By working on developing these social skills that little boy and all of our other preschoolers will be able to make new friends, be more confident, and really hold no space for possible social anxiety. Does it still happen? Of course, but much less often.
*Summary
So you can see now why preschool holds a lot more weight for your child aside from just the academics. Self-growth stems from so many skills they learn during these early years and a big part of that, in the beginning, comes from learning how to socialize. If your child can master this then they are definitely on the way to positive overall developmental growth. It’s the students we see still hanging on to the social norms of yesteryear (infantile behaviors) that we would need to worry about. But the ability to watch your preschooler grow, learn those social norms, make new friends, want to become more self independent… well that’s the gift that keeps on giving (trust me :)).
I’d love to read your thoughts and get the convo going in the comment section of this post! Definitely leave any questions or ideas down below as well. And subscribe to the newsletter for updates and ongoing happenings at TylekTeaches.com. The subscription link is just at the bottom of this post.
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