Routines help create happier children

Preschoolers are explorers, scientists, artists and experimenters.

They’re experiential learners, so they keep pushing on limits. They’re still learning how to be friends, how to engage with the world, and how to control their bodies, emotions and minds.

With a little help from you, these years will build a secure and unlimited foundation for your child’s entire childhood.

Preschoolers may resist bedtime, but without sufficient sleep, three to five-year-old children simply do not have the resourcefulness to cope with the demands of their day.

Develop a routine that helps your child wind down and start relaxing well before bedtime.

When they give up their nap, be sure they still get some downtime to rest every day.

Regular routines help children feel safe and are vital for preschoolers who deal with big fears daily.

The world is chaotic and scary to them; their household should be predictable.

A calm, orderly and fun atmosphere, with regular meal and bedtime routines, will produce happier children who have the internal resources to meet daily developmental challenges.

While your child may no longer have frequent tantrums, they still have big feelings and they still need you to “listen” to those feelings regularly.

All children need daily laughter to vent the anxieties that inevitably build up in a small person grappling to manage themselves in a big, often overwhelming world, so be sure to build daily roughhousing into your schedule.

If you want well-behaved children, resist any impulse to punish. Children this age need guidance and limits because they are actively learning the rules and how the world works, and naturally, they will test to see just where those limits are.

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Remember, though, that their brains are still developing. They get flooded with emotions very easily. When you set limits, they get upset, partly because they want what they want, but partly because they worry about your disapproval. It helps them to calm themselves if you empathise with their disappointment or anger.

Research shows that when young children are punished, their behaviour worsens. Instead, set limits and empathise with feelings to help your child want to behave.

This helps them develop self-discipline, rather than relying on you to regulate them.

Parents of preschoolers face a big challenge. Most three, four and five-year-olds don’t have lots of siblings or cousins readily accessible to play with, and they can’t read yet. Parents have other things to do.

Many parents solve this by letting their children spend many of their awake hours watching TV or playing with an iPad.

Because preschoolers’ brains are still in a critical developmental phase, engaging with screens changes the way their brains develop, literally shortening their attention spans for life.

Screens are also easy to use so children who come to depend on them for fun are less likely to become motivated readers.

What’s more, creating this habit early in life deprives children of the essential skill of structuring their own time. But there are alternatives to screen time for your children, and the good news is that once children get used to structuring their own time, they’ll be much less interested in screens.

• Information obtained from www.ahaparenting.com.

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