3 Kids and Us

5 Ways You Can Help Your Child Thrive at Childcare

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When your child starts attending a childcare centre, they are taking an exciting next step in their learning journey, and you can help them along the way.

As a parent, there are many things you can do to help your child succeed in a childcare environment, making the most of learning opportunities and engaging meaningfully with curriculum programs. You can support your child to learn, play, discover, and grow. 

Here are 5 ways you can help your child thrive at childcare!

1. Be prepared

Good preparation is the key to a successful childcare journey! 

Being prepared for childcare can help you to avoid common challenges, staying calm and collected at drop-off time. The night before your child attend childcare, make sure you’ve organised everything they need (lunch, clothes, a backpack). This will save you a last-minute rush in the morning!

Before your child starts at childcare, prepare them for changes in routine and the new challenges they might face at their centre. Focus on the positives as much as possible, and slowly introduce your child to centre routines. 

2. Stay consistent

Staying consistent with childcare routines and expectations can make life much easier for your child. 

Find out what routines and schedules are in place at your child’s early learning centre, and consider implementing some of these at home. You might adjust nap times or meal times to align more closely with centre timetables. 

Maintaining consistency between home and childcare can help your child to feel secure in their environments. They’ll know what to expect each day, and they’ll be able to face new challenges with confidence.

3. Communicate with educators

Your child’s educators will be an important part of their learning journey, so it’s important that you communicate with them regularly. 

Each day at centre drop-off and pick-up times, speak to your child’s educators about their interests and learning needs. Ask how your child is doing at childcare and if there are any concerns you should be aware of. 

Communicating with educators can help you develop a clearer sense of your child’s strengths and weaknesses, providing you with the knowledge you need to help your child succeed. 

4. Make quality time

When you child begins attending a childcare centre, they may have less time at home with you, so it’s important that you continue to spend quality time with them outside of centre hours. 

Take time to talk to your child, asking them questions about their friends, their educators, and the things that they are learning. Spend time with your child, and listen to them when they communicate with you. 

Quality time is an important part of ensuring that your child continues to feel secure both at home and at childcare. This will make it much easier for your child to learn and thrive.   

5. Build on learning

Learning doesn’t have to stop at childcare. You can help your child build on their skills and knowledge at home! 

Find out what skills your child is working on at childcare. Are they learning about the environment? Are they practising sports, music, or communication skills? Whenever possible, introduce these concepts to games and activities at home too. 

By building on your child’s learning at home, you can help them learn concepts more quickly, and you can provide them with the support they need to develop new skills and achieve their full potential.

Still searching for the right childcare centre for your child? Visit MyXplor to find childcare centres near you! For example, a parents based in Rowville might visit the MyXplor Rowville Childcare listing to find local centres.

How to Cope With Being a Member of the Sandwich Generation

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The sandwich generation is nothing to do with tasty savory snacks. In fact it’s a term that describes the people who are at an age where they have caring responsibilities for their children on the one hand, and their parents on the other, so they’re sandwiched between the two generations.

This scenario is becoming more and more common, especially as couples have their children later in life. Many people in their forties and fifties have children who are still at home, often very young children, while their parents are heading into their eighties and nineties, and needing help themselves.

Being a caregiver for your kids is hard work, stressful, and time-consuming, and being a caregiver for one or both of your parents likewise; so if you have both to cope with it can become somewhat overwhelming. If you’re trying to juggle working as well as your caring responsibilities, your life can become a non-stop whirl of activity and stress from the moment you wake in the morning to when you drop into bed exhausted at the end of the day.

The problem is, what choice do you have? You can’t stop caring for your kids, but most people who have loving parents that cared for them and supported them when they were growing up feel they have a duty to return that care when their folks become infirm or need assistance.

First of all, remember that you must put yourself first, and that to do so is in no way a selfish act. If you push yourself so hard that you become too exhausted or unwell to care for your kids and your parents, they’ll have to manage without you altogether, at least for a little while. Making sure you get sufficient rest and relaxation, and the opportunity to lead a healthy lifestyle that supports your own health is the best way to stay fit and well and maintain your caring roles.

There’s also plenty of support out there for you as a caregiver. For example there are some very helpful resources published online at sites like www.inhomecare.com that have valuable advice and information for about in-home care and people who are caring for their elderly parents. There’s an abundance of online resources, but you’ll find support and information that can help at doctor’s surgeries, libraries, and other community facilities as well.

You might find there are groups your parents could attend that would enrich their lives, childcare resources for the holidays, and volunteer organizations who can lend a hand when you need it. You should also make sure you’re accessing any local or national support you’re entitled to, for example, caregiver’s respite schemes. There are caregivers organizations who can help you with all these, as well as giving you some much needed personal support.

Sometimes all you need is a little extra help, so it’s worth looking at the options for in-home care for your parents, or childcare for your children. An hour a day where your kids can play at an afterschool club, or a caregiver can come in and cook your parents a meal could be invaluable in helping you to manage.

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We left our home in Sydney, Australia many moons ago in May 2012 and, other than a brief stint back in Perth for Christmas and a wedding in early 2014, we have been travelling the world nomadically ever since, running a business from our laptops and we’re here to show you how to do it!