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MPR News early childhood reporter Kyra Miles will periodically take questions from Footnotes subscribers and pose them to early childhood experts.

This week, Kristen Wheeler Highland took questions about preparing little kids and their families for preschool. Wheeler Highland has been in the early childhood field for 43 years in many different capacities. She’s currently a staff member of the Community Action Partnership of Washington & Ramsey Counties and works closely with the region’s Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

Here are questions from Footnotes subscribers and answers from Wheeler Highland, edited for clarity:

1) Should all children attend preschool? — Caitlin, Woodbury

That is truly an individual and family question. Preschool is obviously not a required thing.

I don’t want a family to ever feel bad that they didn’t send their child to a designated preschool. So do they have to choose one? No. If they have a high quality early childhood setting that their child is already attending, they’re building the same skill sets.

2) What can parents do at home to prepare their child for preschool? — Caitlin, Woodbury

A couple of the things that are very, very helpful for any child going to either preschool or beginning to think about transitioning into kindergarten would be to build some independent skills in kids. One of the big ones is helping children to ask for help when they need it.

Teach your child how to open the containers that come with their lunch because that’s a skill that children can really use and children can really work on.

Other things parents can work on during their everyday life is asking children questions, or to do things that they’re not aware are actually school readiness skills. For example, can you go find your shoes? Or how many shoes do you have? Those are math and science related in a way to build skills. 

3) Setting aside the question of cost, how should I think about deciding when to enroll my toddler, who is currently at home with a parent full time in day care or child care? — Nick, Minneapolis

Temperament matters. If you have a shy or introverted child, you might want to consider a longer-range plan so that we don’t traumatize kiddos. You might want to look at it in a setting where there might be a program that would offer you the ability to bring your child  two half days a week, so you could ease your way in.

If you have that social butterfly child who thrives with people and loves to be social and out there you might consider it sooner because that child will thrive in that setting. 

4) Can you prepare a child for separation, or do you just have to walk away from the crying child a few times to show that you are coming back as promised? — Roger, Golden Valley

That is a tough one. The secret sauce when it comes to separation is rituals and routines. 

We need both the parent and the child to be confident in the separating and the reuniting. What are the three key things you’re going to do every single time you drop your child off, so that the minute I do the first of those three things, my child knows it’s signaling that I’m going. And then when you get to the end of the three, if your child is crying, you can reassure them, ask the staff to come be with your child and go ahead and go. 

Standing outside looking in so your child can see you, or leaving and doing what I call the rubber band, where you leave and you come back just creates a bigger issue for your child.

I recommend giving them some positive statements like, “You’re going to have a great day.” And then it’s always some kind of connection. So is that a hug? Is that a kiss? Is that a high-five? Is that an I love you? The last one of that routine always needs to be words to the effect of, I’ll see you later, or goodbye, or I will pick you up at 11.

The worst thing a parent can ever do for their child, from a social, emotional and mental health perspective, is to sneak out. If you sneak out on your child, what you’ve told that child is you can’t trust me to let you know I’m going somewhere. 

5) How can we prepare children for those transitions?

Visiting the building that the child will be so it becomes a typical building. For some of our families, I’ve recommended making a little picture book. Go take a photo of the school, so that they can begin to start calling it their school.

If there’s an open house where you can go visit, ask if you can take a photo of the teacher that the child is going to have and get their name so that you can create what we call a social story where the night before you go to school for the first time we can sit down look at your picture book about your school.

The unknown is what creates anxiety for us. 

6) How can we best support our children’s teachers? I’m not just looking for gifts I could give them, but more so things that take my effort and intentionality. — Elizabeth, Maple Grove

A couple things come to mind off the top of my head. One thing is finding out if there are any specific things that a teacher needs. For example, every teacher is different. Do they want parent involvement in their classroom? Is there something special that that teacher needs or wants for dropping kids off or for picking kids up?

Ask the teacher how they want to receive communication from you as a parent. Do they want you to text them, email them, call them? And then, second of all, tell them how you best handle communication. Do you want them to call you, text you, email you, and then there can be a conversation about what. 

7) How do you navigate tough social situations with your preschooler and a classmate or a bully? — Elizabeth, Maple Grove

In 3, 4 and 5-year-olds, we call those behaviors pre-bullying behaviors. They’re behaviors that if children don’t develop additional social skills, could become bullying later, right now, they’re just tough behaviors.

One of the things that we always say to kids is tell them no, tell them stop. Use very strong words if you need to say it loudly, so then you get an adult’s attention. That’s great. 

If a child comes home and talks about another child in class that is picking on them or being mean to them, bringing that to a teacher’s attention without making it an accusation — “Hey, just wanted to let you know Peter’s been coming home and saying that Brian is picking on him. Obviously, I’m not here all day, but I wanted to let you know, and is there anything you can tell me that I should know or work on with Peter in that situation?” 

8) Best books to read for helping kids learn to read? — Tammara, Minneapolis

I’m a big believer in what we call wordless or nearly wordless books, because that helps children to focus on the pictures and then they can begin to develop stories based on the pictures that they see. 

There is a series of books, and that is called the Gossie series by Olivier Dunrea. It’s about a great little Gosling whose name is Gossie and her friends. The reason that those books are amazing for helping children is because once you learn the characters they show up in every single one of the books, which also increases children’s ability to do prediction. And prediction is a big piece of learning how to read. 

My other thing is, don’t forget nonfiction books for early childhood. In other words, the books about trucks that just have the pictures of the trucks with the names in it, the books of the creepy bugs that they can name. 

And don’t forget that board books outlast the infant and toddler stage. Getting preschoolers good quality board books so that they can be confident in turning the pages, so that we’re not always worried about ripping paper is amazing. 

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Twin Cities early childhood specialist Kristen Wheeler Highland fielded questions from MPR News audience members on preschool matters, from preparing their kids for the new experience to handling the challenges of being separated.

Navigating preschool decisions for your kids: 8 questions, answered

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