Ah, the pleasure of being a child! And where is this most visible? In the presence of other children! And in today’s nuclear family set up, a child remains a child in the true sense in the midst of other children only in a pre-school or day-care centre. Most give the children the essential warmth and emotional support which substitutes that of the parents who may be away either on a job or are at home and want the child away from them for a few hours.
If you thought a day-care is good only for the child’s immediate need for company, you could be only partially correct. They are in fact a great, great help in the next step in a child’s growth, the formal educational system. And that the pre-schools do in the following ways:
- Introduces children to the ideas of interactions
Nuclear families are said to make children loners whose interaction with the outside world becomes rather transactional to keep their immediate interests intact. At such in a day-care, a child learns positive interactions from loads of individuals as young as them to as old as the geriatrics accompanying them! These interactions have a great positive impact on the child and are very helpful in aiding them in developing stable relations later in life when the Indian Education System takes them higher up the educational ladder.
- Helps develop them emotionally.
A child reacts when cuddled, scolded, talked nicely/ harshly to – scenarios that are played almost daily in play schools anywhere. These being new to the child, can be difficult on those who do not live in an environment with others. In fact, these are something a nuclear family provides only fleetingly. The best and safest place to develop the right abilities to interact meaningfully thus remain the playschool. In the context of the Indian Education System, a child well-adjusted is most likely to do well later during schooling when education starts to get increasingly demanding.
- Helps develop them physically
Similar to emotional development, children have limited to severely curtailed physical development given that most urban centres in India are cramped spaces where a child cannot go out and play without hurting himself/ herself badly. That being the issue, an area being demarcated exclusively as play area and that too for a very small child is a good way to introduce them to the to physical exertion. This fact is important as most physical ailments later in life can be attributed to the lack of exercise and the body’s inability to handle even the slightest of physical stress right from a young age. Doing it at the right time and place while being safe is then the best bet.
- Helps identify the child’s strengths and weaknesses early on
They say that a child’s future can be gauged by his or her gait right from a very young age. Playschools are then the perfect setting to understand which way the wind flows later in their lives. Is he/ she a physical person, an extrovert, studios, boisterous, quite and observant, experimental, or a mix of these? It can easily be gauged right at the playschool and a curriculum designed to aid the child’s development throughout life which invariably happens later.
- Child becomes more sociable and contributes to society at the earliest
A child in a crowd reacts differently from a loner. And we can never truly be alone- unless you plan to stay in Siberia! In every context, a sociable child can cope up with most of life’s issues and whatever circumstances life throws at you because they have the art of getting people together to their cause and being there for others in their most trying times. This is a serious contrast to a loner who has limited abilities to empathise, associate and communicate with his/ her peers. Being a loner can have serious relational repercussions later in life.
- In the Indian context, the child picks up language and societal norms very fast
With India having diversity like no other place, the best place to learn multiple languages besides picking up societal norms and cultural cues early in life is the playschool where people from different backgrounds come together. Very young children, if exposed to the right environment can pick up more than one language very easily besides picking up other skills including maths and sciences. And the best place to start them off is the playschool.
- Imbibing in them the ability to sit in one place and study
The Indian Education system gets demanding over the years and especially so for those who don’t have the inclination to sit down and study for a reasonable length of time. One of the best places to imbibe this spirit in the child is the playschool which with the right curriculum and dedicated staff can put the child onto a path of studying daily in a disciplined manner for maximum long-term gains.
