How to Encourage Independence in your Preschooler

"Hi this is Ann and we’re going to take a minute now to talk about how to encourage independence for you child. How do you make your child learn how to be independent? These are important skills that we need to deal with especially in the preschool years. When you take your child to school you can talk about growing up, being older, being more independent and taking more responsibility, this can easily be taught and started at home. Toys throughout the home, you should make sure that your child is able to go when he’s finished playing with his toys to put them away. You should no longer be the one to put the toys away. Another way to encourage and foster independence is with your shoes, a very simple task to teach your child how to tie a shoe. This will psychologically and emotionally have the child zoom because he or she will say wow I know how to tie my shoes and will be ahead of the class because many students in preschool do not know how to tie their shoes. So right there you would have a big heads up on independence. And again anything that your child can now do, you should expect putting books away, putting toys away, going to the bathroom, teaching your child to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom, to put the paper in the waste basket, these are again important items to foster and encourage independence."