Preparing Your Child For A New School | MySchoolr

Going to a new school can be both an exciting and worrying involvement for you and your child, particularly for your child with extra requirements.

This blog aims to give you an idea of what to expect and how to prepare your child for a new school. Remember that some of these approaches are age-explicit, so choose strategies that are suitable for your child. You can also modify them to suit your child best.

1. Prepare Your Child for The Changes

Talk about changes and listen to your child, Talk through the similarities and differences between the new and previous schools with your child, as well as the new expectations of him/her. Be empathetic and acknowledge your child?s emotions about the changes.

Build excitement, read from books, share your own positive experiences, let your child meet and hear about positive experiences.

2. Build Skills

Teach your child the following skills to help him/her with the demands of the school

Positive work habits:
Communicate with your child, the skills that need to effectively learn in school. So that your kid will learn more with minimum efforts.

Communication skills:
Allow him/her to practice these skills by providing them with opportunities to interact with other children. Model and role-play these skills with your child.

Self-determination and self-encouragement skills:
As your child grows up, he/she will need to learn to make decisions, set goals, problem-solving skills and speak up for him/ herself. These skills will enable your child to take charge and influence important aspects of his/her life.

Also read: 10 Tips for the First Day of School

3. Collaborate with The School

A strong partnership between the house and school is important for your kid?s transition and learning.

Managing anxiety:
For some youngsters, ups and downs may be exceptionally uncomfortable and bring about approaches of worry. To help your child manage these worries, you could use the following strategies:

Managing social situations:
Social situations, which may be complex and unpredictable, can be stressful for some children. To help your child better understand and navigate social situations, you could explore the use of social storyboards.

Social storyboards:
These are short and personalized stories you can use to help your child familiarize with the social situation, and help manage his/her emotions and behaviors. They are used to explain the sequence of events that occur in a particular situation (e.g., what to do when buying food) through pictures or videos

Managing with unstructured time:
Some children prefer to know what exactly will be happening and may feel worried when things are less structured or unexpected.

Graphical schedules:
Provide your child with a visual schedule to show what he/she can expect, and what he/she needs to complete. This will also help him/her to be more independent and be less reliant on prompts and guidance.