Kindergarten: half-time in sight

A round of applause for you, dear parents. You have successfully accompanied your child on the kindergarten adventure. What an intensive few months it has been: you have had to internalise your child's new daily routine, get used to the changed organisation of everyday life and fulfil your parental duties.

But your child also deserves recognition: he or she has had to get used to the new, strenuous weekly rhythm at kindergarten, find his or her way in a large group, get to know one or more carers and accept unfamiliar rules. This is a major adjustment! Sometimes it takes a lot of energy, sometimes a little less. But children always create their own living space, an area that belongs only to them, the first living space outside the family cocoon.

Luis finishes kindergarten himself

This new world manifests itself in different ways in children. Five-year-old Sophia comes home from nursery at lunchtime and is eagerly awaited by her mum and little brother. Her mother eagerly enquires about Sophia's morning. «What did you do today?» she asks. «Played,» the girl replies in a friendly but monosyllabic manner. She just doesn't want to talk right now.

Kindergarten is a time of rapid physical and emotional change.

After a long separation process from his mum, Luis now enjoys going to kindergarten. When the four-year-old doesn't have lessons in the afternoon, he gets bored and would rather play with his new friends than be at home or run errands with his mum. «Can I make an appointment?» Luis asks his parents almost every day. Sometimes he picks up the phone himself to make an appointment with his colleagues.

Parents, let go!

That sounds great at first: A child starts kindergarten and becomes more and more independent from their parents - wonderful! But the path to a self-confident, independent life is characterised by many small separations from the parental home - and goes hand in hand with the parental realisation that our child is moving a little further away from us with each developmental step and needs us a little less.

The kindergarten years are one big transition, a phase of rapid physical, emotional and social change. The toddler-like appearance disappears, height and weight increase and the child stretches out. Gross and fine motor skills are also refined. They develop new skills in drawing, painting and handicrafts; they can concentrate more on one thing at a time, and cycling becomes increasingly easier.

Many children between the ages of four and five are true world champions in the game of memory and beat adults hands down. According to German developmental psychologist Hartmut Kasten, this is typical for this age: «Four-year-olds usually recognise all the pictures they were shown shortly before, even if they have seen up to 25 other pictures in between.»

A lot also changes on a personality level: children now have a clear picture of themselves and their own gender identity. «In fact, cognitive development makes a veritable quantum leap at this age,» says paediatrician Stefanie Loibl from the Kinderarzthaus Zürich. «A child of four to five years of age interprets the emotional signals of other children in the group, can empathise with the thoughts of others, understand more complex intentions and expose lies.»

In kindergarten, the environment comes into focus

The child develops a conscience and can distinguish between good and evil. Emotional differentiations such as guilt, shame or remorse are now possible. Children of this age discover that other people have different needs or interests and think differently to themselves.

They learn to move in different groups and internalise their own norms and values. They learn about rules and are aware of the consequences of breaking them for themselves and others - this is essential in kindergarten groups with up to 25 children, where living together only works if rules are observed. Because accepting rules also means recognising boundaries.

Being able to wait is also part of this area of so-called executive functions. Postponing one's own needs is of great importance for a child's personal development. «Children need boundaries in order to learn that the needs of others must also be taken seriously and that their own needs cannot always be met immediately,» writes educationalist Monika Bröder in the standard work «Kita-Handbuch». «By experiencing the rules on a daily basis, the children gradually learn to take responsibility for themselves and others».

The first school assessment interview sometimes causes uncertainty among parents.

Is my child not enough?

The child's integration into the group, compliance with rules, control of their own needs as well as their cognitive and motor skills and much more are discussed with their parents in an initial school assessment. For many children and their parents, this «report meeting» is the first external assessment of their offspring. It is intended as a pulse meter for the individual assessment of learning progress - but it sometimes causes uncertainty among parents.

Like Lea, whose son Miro had difficulties settling in and would rather play with building blocks than do arts and crafts or paint and doesn't yet want to sing along in the chair circle. After the assessment, Lea is worried. «I was afraid my son wouldn't be enough. I couldn't let go of the idea that he needed therapy.»

Many parents automatically develop this deficit view, confirms educationalist Margrit Stamm. «Every failure of the child is a failure of the parents, at least that's how they experience it,» says Stamm.

She has also experienced this herself with her son: «If, as a mum or dad, you discover that the child has a characteristic that you don't like or that doesn't go down well, you look at the children from this angle much more quickly and only focus on it.» It would be so important to see and emphasise the many other positive characteristics of the child.

«Parents and teachers should see the first assessment meeting for what it is: an assessment of the current situation,» advises Peter Lienhard, lecturer at the Intercantonal University for Special Needs Education. The parents' assessment and the child's self-assessment form the basis for discussing with the teacher which goals are important for the child in the coming months and who can contribute what.

«Assessments with the parents and also those with the child should never be one-sided judgements at any stage. The unreflected opening of often supposedly objective results from standardised procedures can harden more than clarify,» says Lienhard.

He has therefore developed observation guidelines for teachers to help the child carry out an age-appropriate self-assessment. «The assessment meeting is not about a one-sided professional diagnostic view, but about a shared perspective on what is important for the child's development and education in the coming months.»

«Grass doesn't grow faster if you pull on it,» says an African proverb. In a figurative sense, this is especially true for kindergarten children. «You never know how quickly a child will develop,» says Margrit Stamm. «Especially at this age, a child makes enormous progress, sometimes within just a few weeks.» This variability can be unsettling, but it is normal.

Developmental psychology shows that every child has their own learning path and pace. It helps insecure parents to realise «that the kindergarten teacher, just like the parents, only wants the best for the child», explain the two psychologists Fabian Grolimund and Stefanie Rietzler.

«This idea is particularly important when the nursery school teacher gives parents feedback on their child's development and points out strengths, but also areas that their child is still struggling with.»

Play, dear children, play!

«Play is the decisive driving force and therefore the most important support measure,» says educationalist Margrit Stamm. «Children learn for life through play. The more playful the learning, the more sustainable it is for the development of intelligence and mental well-being.»

This is also confirmed by André Zimpel, a psychologist at the University of Hamburg. «Play is the child's work and the most efficient form of learning.» It is the most important form of engagement with oneself and the environment. «In play, children have the opportunity to give their existence a personal meaning; they can shape the world according to their knowledge, ideas and desires and make it understandable,» says Zimpel.

Role-playing games such as doctor and patient become topical between the ages of four and six. This is made possible by the so-called «theory of mind». It means that children can attribute mental states to themselves and other people. «From around the age of five, children consciously slip into the role of another person and act as them. This assumes that the child has internalised a clear idea of themselves as an independent personality,» says Zimpel.

It's not always all sunshine and rainbows in these games, antipathies are part of it and conflicts are sometimes fought out loudly. This is not always pleasant for adults, but it is an important social learning experience for children.

But the most important thing in parenting is that children are loved.

Lutz Jäncke, neuropsychologist

Have patience

In this way, the child paves the way for executive skills - the mental abilities that control human thought and action. For example, when we admonish children to «calm down» or «pay more attention», we are appealing to behaviours that are associated with the executive system. However, this highly complex system only develops during kindergarten. It is not fully developed until the age of 20. For us adults, this means having patience, practising forbearance and showing tolerance.

«I always say: children are not adults, but developing, not yet adult human beings,» says Lutz Jäncke, neuropsychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Zurich. «But the most important thing in education is that children are loved.»