Will Banting and his family have been preparing for this moment – the four-year-old Port Melbourne boy is among about 150,000 children starting kindergarten this week.
While many parents will be dreading the tears at drop-off, Ashley Banting says her son could not be more excited, though experts say the step-up can be a challenging time for many.
Associate Professor Kay Margetts, of Melbourne University’s graduate school of education, says some children’s behaviour may change as they move into a new setting and adjust to new rules and social norms.
Will Banting, 4, gets ready for kindergarten with mum Ashley.Credit: Jason South
“They might wake up in the night with some terrors, they might start wetting their bed or being more demanding,” she says.
“There’s a lot of emotional coping that children will be going through at that time. Just because they wet their bed or wake up crying doesn’t mean things are bad, but it is an indication that the child may be having some struggles getting into the new setting.”
Margetts says it isn’t unusual for a child to say, “I don’t want to go”, and rather than asking why, which a child may not be able to articulate, they could speak with the educator about it.
She also says it is important to have consistent boundaries at home and for parents to support self-regulation, as well as ensuring parents never sneak off at drop-off without saying goodbye to their child.
“It comprises the trust relationship between the child and the parent,” she says. “We have to communicate with confidence that the child is going to be OK.”
For Will, who says he loves building Lego dinosaurs, as well as playing with my friends, sessional three-year-old kindergarten and daycare have been great preparation for the longer days ahead, says his mother.
Banting says there is sometimes confusion between long daycare and kindergarten for Will, but she uses a colour-coded chart in his room to help him understand which days are kinder and which are long daycare. She also employs rituals to help, including high-fives at the door, lots of hugs and following through when she says it’s the last hug.
The Victorian government’s $14 billion Best Start, Best Life initiative has been rolling out free three-year-old kindergarten, with programs increasing to 15 hours a week across the state by 2029. Four-year-old kindergarten is being renamed pre-prep and increasing to 30 hours a week, with six local government areas starting the new hours in 2025.
G8 Education, which has about 41,000 children in more than 400 centres across Australia, has found taking the time to transition can be the difference between a happy, secure child or a negative experience.
“It is important there is collaboration between the family and the teacher or educator, as well as the children having input,” G8’s chief education and learning officer, Ali Evans, says.
She says that anecdotally in Victoria, educators in the sector are sharing that children need more support with developing social and emotional skills, including oral language and self-regulation. She says this could be due to a range of societal factors, but also fallout from COVID-19 restrictions.
G8 Education’s research shows that children in its Victorian centres spend on average seven hours and 54 minutes a day in care, a minute more than their NSW counterparts, and about 20 minutes less than ACT children.
Tips for starting kinder or daycare
- Develop a separation routine. Don’t ever leave without saying goodbye (Margetts says this can compromise the relationship between a child and parent); tell them you will be back to get them.
- Tell services your child’s preferences. Do they sleep on their side, what food do they like, do they sleep with socks on or off, do they have a special comfort toy?
- Share as much information with the centre as you can to ensure your child feels comfortable.
- Familiarise your child with the service, and go to orientation days so they feel comfortable with staff. Some children take longer to transition than others – allow for that.
- Comfort toys can be helpful, but can also create complications if another child wants their toy. Consider having separate comfort toys for home and care.
- For sessional kindergartens, ensure your child isn’t sharing their lunch due to allergies, and don’t under or over-cater, check how much they are eating.
- Children are expected to be toilet trained at kinder, but make sure you provide changes of clothes in case of accidents.
- Practise enforcing healthy boundaries at home and encourage emotional regulation.