How old is the right age for a baby to go to kindergarten? Is it good for a baby to go to kindergarten too early?

Babies can go to kindergarten when they are about the same age, so when is the right age for a baby to go to kindergarten? Will there be any harm if a baby goes to kindergarten too early? Let's take a look~

The best age to start kindergarten

The best age to send your baby to kindergarten is 3-4 years old, but it is better for boys to start school half a year to a year later than girls.

Boys are younger than girls of the same age in terms of mental age, and their language skills are not as good as girls. When girls go to kindergarten at the age of three, boys of the same age are more difficult to take care of than girls. They are not focused in class, are very naughty, and are not easy to discipline. Therefore, it is recommended that boys should enter school one and a half to two years later than girls, so that the effect parents want can be achieved, and it is also beneficial to the mental and intellectual development of children.

What basic skills are needed to attend kindergarten?

It is best not to send your baby to kindergarten before the age of two. When you want to send your baby to kindergarten, parents need to examine the baby's self-care and expression abilities, as follows:

Check the baby's ability to express physical discomfort, such as whether he can express pain, wetness, thirst, going to the toilet, etc. The baby's ability to express physical discomfort is very important, because kindergarten teachers cannot always pay attention to every child, and their understanding of the child's body and personality is not as detailed as parents, so the baby needs to have this ability to express in order to go to kindergarten safely.

Check the baby's self-care ability. Going to kindergarten is also a stage for the baby to exercise his independence. The baby leaves his parents in kindergarten and starts a relatively independent life. The baby needs to have a certain degree of self-care ability to cope with basic daily problems, such as eating, going to the toilet, etc., and most kindergartens will also have relative requirements for the baby's self-care ability, so parents need to cultivate the baby's self-care ability before sending the baby to kindergarten.

Check the baby's social skills, understand the basic rules of collective life such as "taking turns" and queuing, and have the ability to ask others for help to solve problems. Going to kindergarten is actually the stage when the baby begins to enter society. The baby begins to interact with other babies like himself. He is no longer like the apple of the eye of the family. He needs to follow the rules of collective life. This is also the beginning of the baby's becoming a social person. People start to socialize when they go to kindergarten and need to follow the order of society. Before the baby goes to kindergarten, parents need to cultivate the baby's social skills so that he can live peacefully with other babies in the kindergarten.

The dangers of sending your baby to kindergarten too early

What kind of impact will it have on children if they are sent to kindergarten before the age of 3?

1. Children who enter nursery too early are more aggressive

In the book "Raising Children: Should Children Under Three Go to Kindergarten?", an Australian child education expert pointed out that more and more evidence supports his theory - children who are separated from their parents and go to kindergarten at an early age are more likely to develop aggressive personalities, antisocial behaviors and other psychological problems. Such children will encounter interpersonal relationship problems in the future and will not easily establish close relationships with others.

British child authority has also issued the same warning. After years of research, they found that children raised by their parents perform better in all aspects than those in kindergartens, cared for by nannies or left in the care of relatives. They are better than other control group children in terms of physiology, psychology and intelligence.

Professors at Oxford University conducted a follow-up study on 1,200 children and found that children who were placed in nurseries from an early age were more "aggressive" in adolescence. Two other studies also found the same result, that is, the longer the time in the nursery, the more likely they are to develop "antisocial behavior" and "violent behavior." Going to kindergarten too early will seriously affect the brain development, emotional development, social behavior, and cognitive ability of children. In addition, their physical development will be delayed, nerve atrophy, and abnormal brain development. These are all related to the failure to receive one-on-one family care. Therefore, experts recommend that young children should be allowed to grow up in a warm and safe family environment instead of sending them to kindergarten too early.

2. Going to daycare before the age of three can lead to emotional problems

In the UK, Lamb, a famous psychology professor at Cambridge University, found through research that sending children to daycare too early may lead to long-term emotional problems.

Lamb pointed out that children who are sent to nurseries before the age of three are more likely to have bad behaviors and lower ability to handle stress when they grow up. Last year, Professor Lamb and his colleagues conducted a study on 3,000 children and found that the level of stress hormone cortisol in children nine months before entering nurseries was twice that of children of the same age who did not attend nurseries. Moreover, the younger the children in nurseries are, the greater the stress level is.

Australian child education expert and famous clinical physician Steve Biddulph has warned that placing children under the age of three in daycare centers increases the risk of damaging their normal psychological development.

3. Entering kindergarten too early weakens family ties

According to relevant national regulations, children in kindergarten should be at least 3 years old to enter kindergarten. There are two reasons why parents send their children to kindergarten early: one is that they are busy with work; the other is that they think they are not good at taking care of their children, and early admission can enable their children to receive education earlier. In fact, this idea is quite biased.

First of all, from the perspective of children's psychological development, children are still in the parent-child attachment stage before the age of 3, and it is best to be raised by the family; the time away from parents and family should not be too long. 6 months to 2 years old is the special emotional connection stage between children and parents. It is not until around 2 years old that children's active social interaction with peers begins to sprout. At around 2 and a half years old, children's logic and sense of order are gradually established, and they can effectively organize interactions and life.

Since the infant stage is the best period for the development of early attachment, entering kindergarten too early will cause children to have a strong psychological burden due to their immature mental development, limited language development, and inability to regulate emotions. They will be unwilling to actively socialize and express themselves, and lack a sense of security, which will affect the children's future establishment of good interpersonal relationships and high-level emotional development. Therefore, age-appropriate behavior and education are crucial to the development of children. Parents should not let their own opinions become a stumbling block to their children's long-term development.

4. It is better to wait until your child is 3 years old before sending him to kindergarten

Ms. Chen's child was once a child in the kindergarten. Because she couldn't find a suitable babysitter, she sent her two-year-old son to kindergarten. The one year that her child was in the kindergarten was a year that her family fought against diseases. As long as one child in the class caught a cold, her child would be infected. In winter, she and her husband often took a taxi to take the child to the emergency room in the middle of the night in the wind and snow, and spent many sleepless nights. The child was also infected with hand, foot and mouth disease while in the kindergarten, but fortunately it was not serious. Ms. Chen made a rough calculation and found that her daughter actually only attended the kindergarten for half a year due to illness, bad weather and other reasons; and the treatment cost more than 7,000 yuan.

If there is someone taking care of the child at home, it is recommended that the child go to kindergarten at the age of three. This is because the resistance of a two-year-old child is the weakest, and kindergarten is a public place. No matter how good the kindergarten is, it will not be as good as the one-on-one care at home. The younger the child, the stronger the separation anxiety from the parents. This emotion will affect the child's eating, which will in turn affect the child's resistance and make him or her particularly prone to illness. Considering the child's health, it is better to start at the age of three.

5. Even the best teacher cannot replace mother

Children under two and a half years old should receive one-on-one care from their mothers, and joint parenting is the most ideal way. If you want the brain of a child to develop healthily, you need to stimulate it with love. The interaction between parents and children is the best stimulation. The care of family and friends is the safest choice for the development of children. This is the kind of influence that is lacking in kindergartens. Even if you hire a nanny to look after the child at home, it is not as good as the mother taking care of the child herself, not to mention that most people are not lucky enough to find an ideal nanny. Children not only need fixed people to raise them, but also need focused care. One-on-one raising can better meet the needs of infants.

The teacher in the kindergarten usually takes care of several children by herself, and she cannot meet the needs of these children at the same time: feeding, peeing, playing, care, etc. Don't think that babies are ignorant. When their demands are not responded to and met, they will feel lonely, which will manifest as irritability and crying. The long-term impact is not conducive to their psychological development, forcing some children to develop aggressive personalities. This is the consequence of emotional deficiency.

There are so many disadvantages to sending children to kindergarten too early. From a long-term perspective, parents should wait until their children are 3 weeks old before sending them to kindergarten. Waiting until they are more mature and have a stronger ability to adapt to the environment before sending them to kindergarten will also help them adapt to kindergarten life.