What If My Child Expresses Fear About Going to Kindergarten?

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Your child may express fear about going to kindergarten. While some children are excited and make the transition to kindergarten with amazing ease, others feel uneasy.

It is natural for students to wonder, “Will I make friends? Will I get lost?”

If your child expresses fears, listen, and then state back to him what you believe he is feeling. This will let your child know  you understand, and he can trust you with his feelings. Try to boost his confidence by remaining positive yourself. Continue to talk about his apprehensions and fear about going to kindergarten as they arise.

Table of contents

• Some children are excited and make the transition to kindergarten with amazing ease. Others express fear about going to kindergarten and feel uneasy.
• Is my child really ready for kindergarten?
• Create a team
• Get reading ready to ease fear about going to kindergarten
• What is the best setting for reading?
• Learning how to write helps learning how to read
• Ease fear about going to kindergarten

Most kindergarten teachers plan special activities involving parents and children for the first week of school. Try to attend these events. They offer the perfect opportunity for your child to feel comfortable in his new setting, meet his classmates, and get to know his teacher.

Something else you can do to alleviate his fear about going to kindergarten is to read books together about kindergarten.

Is my child really ready for kindergarten?

Assessing your child’s readiness for kindergarten can be tricky. Let’s face it: It is difficult to be objective about your own child. You may want to ask the opinion of other adults who have spent time with him. Ultimately, however, the decision rests with you, the parent.

One of the best ways to decide whether your child is ready is to think about his strengths and weaknesses. The following list contains behaviors that are potential barriers to learning. If items on this list apply to your child, however, don’t despair. Each child is an individual, so the profile of one child will be very different from another — even within the same family. Your child’s teacher has the background to diagnose such behaviors and the training to help each child learn and grow.

• immature speech patterns
• difficulty separating from his mother
• many behavior ups and downs
• constant state of motion
• short attention span
• easily distracted
• limited success with fine motor skills (cutting, coloring, etc.)
• in need of constant supervision on playground equipment, or forgets safety rules
• disruptive or destructive
• would rather argue than compromise
• needs rest but resists settling down
• struggles with changes in routine
• often fails to finish tasks
• works better one-on-one than he does alone or in a group setting
• has trouble following simple instructions
• shows silly, boisterous humor that is out of step with other children his age
• has poor bladder control that is especially evident under stress
• tends to forget or lose items and belongings

Create a team

Whether to send your child to kindergarten now or wait until next year is not an easy decision, especially if he exhibits fear about going to kindergarten or many of the behaviors listed above. To help you make the best possible decision, talk to his preschool teacher, caregiver, or pediatrician. Consult beforehand with his new teacher and discuss his social and emotional maturity, unique personality, needs, strengths, and areas of concern as well as the school’s programs, expectations, and services. Consider how you, your child, and the school will work together.

Even though it is not your child’s decision to make, get a sense of how he feels about starting school. A child who throws a tantrum at the thought of school may well need an additional year rich in interaction with others before starting kindergarten.

Consider the big picture: If you have nagging doubts about your child’s ability to handle kindergarten, it may well be best to give him the gift of an additional year. During that time, make sure he has lots of play dates, story hours at the public library, an additional year in (or first exposure to) preschool, and plenty of opportunities to interact with a variety of children in a variety of situations.

How can I help my child grow intellectually?

There are so many enjoyable ways you can support your kindergartner as he acquires these new skills! You are, after all, his most important teacher.

Here are suggestions:

• Challenge him to find different ways that numbers are used at home. These could include telephone books, measuring cups, calendars, clocks, house numbers, and scales.
• Explore shapes together. Learn about circles, squares, cylinders, and rectangles by opening boxes and by examining dishes, baking tins, and the contours of the cupboard itself for shapes.
• Make a conscious effort to listen to your child, and help him learn to listen, too.
• Take a listening walk together. Point out quiet or loud sounds. Help him determine where the sounds came from. On the way home, see how many different sounds the two of you can remember.

First and foremost, however, read to and with your child and have him read to you. Reading is the essential foundation upon which all other skills are built.

By the time children complete kindergarten, they should know the parts of a book and their functions. They should begin to distinguish various forms and purposes of print, from personal letters and signs to storybooks.

Children come to kindergarten with a variety of experiences, and the teacher accepts each child at his unique stage of development and helps him develop the essential building blocks of literacy so he will be successful in first grade.

Get reading-ready to ease fear about going to kindergarten

One way to calm your child’s fear about going to kindergarten is to help him be reading ready.

Exposure to many different kinds of books will increase your child’s language skills. For example:

• A good place to start is with picture books, Mother Goose, nursery rhymes, and books about familiar objects and experiences.
• Even after he has outgrown picture books, he will enjoy hearing a good story read well. Find a book that is just a little beyond his own reading capabilities.
• Select books about concepts, such as shapes, and read slowly so he can absorb the material. Check his understanding by asking him to explain what he has learned. Point to images that illustrate the theme of the book. Ask him to point to pictures that illustrate the words. 
• Find books about real-life people, places, and events to expand and deepen his knowledge. Study the pictures together to see how they illustrate the facts.
• Read books that tap his emotions. Ask him how he feels about the emotional parts and which characters he can identify with. Share your emotions about the story as well.
• Laugh together at humor and nonsense books.
• Compare the artwork you find in a variety of books. Encourage him to create his own illustrations for his favorite books.

What is the best setting for reading?

The best time for reading to and with your child, or for having him read to you, is when he is rested and content. A quiet environment will keep distractions to a minimum. Have him sit close to you so he can see the book. If he is wiggly, try reading to him while he is in the bathtub. Remember that he may want to hear a favorite book over and over again. He will begin to memorize the story, and that’s a stepping stone in the process of learning to read.

Remember, too, that he may well want to read to you, even before he can technically do so. Encourage this behavior, because telling the story while pointing to the pictures is an important pre-reading skill.

Avid readers acquire their love of reading at home, from their parents. No teacher can pass along a passion for books the way a loving parent can. Children remember cozy bedtime stories, sharing books with friends and siblings, and the freedom and encouragement to read lots of different kinds of books.

How can I help my child become a reader?

There are so many enjoyable activities you can do together to help grow his literacy skills:

• Help him notice that words on a page are read from left to right and top to bottom. Show him that words are separated by spaces and that the end of a line is not always the end of a thought.
• Help him understand that anything spoken can be written. For example, have him think of a title for a picture he drew, and write it for him.
• Help him see that books are important to his life. Let him choose books on subjects that interest him. Encourage him to retell or dramatize stories or parts of stories, and take part in the action yourself.
• Help him develop the knowledge and vocabulary he will need to become a successful reader. Take him to interesting places and watch his reaction. Give him a chance to describe what he has seen. For instance, a visit to a farm should lead to a lively discussion about food and farming and give you an opportunity to introduce new words such as tractor and plow.
• Make reading an interactive process. Have him ask his own questions about the story and answer the ones you ask. Encourage him to follow the story with movement and mime. Draw his attention to forms of print such as punctuation, the space around words, and placement of the title.

Alleviate fear about going to kindergarten by reading

Additional tips to help your child be comfortable with reading are:

• When you finish a book, have him tell you what happened first, in the middle, and last. Ask how he felt about the story, and why.
• Discuss the pictures in books and ask him to predict what will happen next.
• Help him observe how much you love language by putting expression and passion in your voice. Want to hear an example? The next time you take your child to the library for story hour, notice how animated the librarian is as she reads.
• Help him to become a good listener. Try 30 seconds of silence. Then have him tell you what he hears. A car down the street? A bird chirping? His baby sister crying?
• Help him develop his vocabulary by asking such questions as “What is another word that means the same as this word?” and then using that word in the conversations you have with him.

Learning how to write helps learning how to read

Whether a child expresses fear about going to kindergarten or not, even before they enter school, most children take the first steps toward experimenting with print. Here’s how you can support your child’s earliest attempts at writing:

• Scribbling is an early form of writing for little ones. Your child may be able to tell you a great story from his scribbles. Ask him to tell you about what he put on the paper.
• If you see him attempting to copy words he sees around him — a label or a book title, for example — ask him to tell you what they mean. Once again, he may have a great story to tell you.
• The next step most children take is to draw letter-like forms — a precursor to alphabet letters. He may try to take a word apart and break it into pieces in his attempt to sound it out. The more you read with your child, the sooner he will be able to make the connection between the words he is learning and what they look like in print.

Ease fear about going to kindergarten

When your child seems ready for more complex tasks, encourage him to print his name beginning with a capital letter and using lowercase letters for the rest. Help him to memorize his address and phone number, his birthday, the days of the week, and months of the year. These skills represent major steps in learning language. Celebrate his progress.

Remember that praise for even small improvements in any of these areas reinforces his willingness to try harder. As he sees what he is learning to do, his confidence will grow and fears about going to kindergarten will ease.