Any holiday is a great time to bond with your kids and enjoy activities associated with it. This February, take some time to help create a magical space where you can teach your preschooler about love. Valentine’s Day is a great time to teach your child about kindness too.
Because they may be experiencing this holiday for the first time, they may not understand what it is all about. Setting the stage on what it represents helps your preschooler have a more positive experience with it, whether at school or home. Feeling, expressing, and sharing love is an important part of raising emotionally intelligent, confident, and happy children. After all, love is a virtue that preschoolers should learn early on. Let’s start first with love.
At a curriculum-based preschool like Parkland Children’s Academy, our staff at our voluntary pre kindergarten program is committed to engaging in age-appropriate lessons that help teach students valuable lessons that help them become more well-rounded adults.
Explaining Love to a Preschooler
Let’s just keep it simple. Tell your preschooler that loving someone means you care a lot about them. This means you look after them and ensure they’re safe and happy. Teach them about different types of love, whether friendship, self-love, family love, or romantic. This allows them to understand that love comes in many different ways and all of them should be celebrated.
It also helps nurture their emotional development and allows them to live their lives and pass this information down to the next generations. This powerfully transforms the world into a more accepting one where people are free to love who they choose without judgment.
Ways to Show Love and Affection to Youth
When you speak with your preschooler about Valentine’s Day, you can also explain the different ways to show love. The five love languages are a great way to explain this concept to your child in an easy-to-understand way:
- Physical touch: This means hugs, cuddles, or kisses.
- Words of affirmation: Some examples include telling someone that you love them, you appreciate what they do for you, or you like how they look that day.
- Gifts: Giving personal, thoughtful gifts shows that you care.
- Quality time: Spending time together may mean watching a movie, taking a walk, or making some cookies to give to your teacher for Valentine’s Day.
- Acts of service: This means doing something for someone to help relieve someone of stress, like making their bed or picking up their toys without being asked.
Demonstrating Kindness to Preschoolers
Now that your preschooler understands love, it is much easier for them to understand kindness as the two go hand in hand. There are actionable ways that we can show our kids about kindness and empathy, including:
Practice What You Preach
Actions do speak louder than words. Make sure your kids know that their home is full of love and you always take time to show kindness.
Listen Well & Empathize
Listen actively as your preschooler is talking about something with you. Use non-verbal cues like eye contact and nodding so they know you’re fully engaged and hearing them. Empathize by telling them you understand how they feel while demonstrating kindness and respect.
Praise The Efforts They Make
Here we want to focus on the action of trying more so than the achievement associated with it. For instance, say, “I love the colors you chose in the picture you drew,” which is more sincere. Telling children you’re proud of them increases their confidence and helps them grow into loving adults.
All these things your preschooler can do at school too, which helps promote a more positive, kind, and empowering environment where they can learn and grow together.
Random Acts of Kindness Day is February 17, a few days after Valentine’s Day. You can find ways to intentionally pay kindness forward that day to further enforce these fundamental beliefs in your preschooler’s life.
Valentine’s Day Activities Surrounding Kindness for Preschoolers
There are many fun Valentine’s Day activities that you can do with a preschooler. Showing the true meaning of the holiday of kindness and love helps them learn how to treat themselves and others well. Also, it should be a day we focus on inclusiveness so that all children feel included in the activities.
Perhaps the best way to reinforce these ideas of love and kindness is by doing some kindness activities, including:
1. Do a compliment circle: Have everyone sit in a circle and ask for someone to volunteer to say someone’s name and a compliment. The person complimented will choose someone, and it is repeated until everyone has been given a turn to both give and receive a compliment.
2. Kindness Tree: Create a kindness tree with different hearts on it that you can write kind acts on as they are done. Strive to fill all of the hearts during a certain time.
3. Donate old things: Kindness also means teaching kids about people outside of their community. Helping others is a great way to show kindness. Have them choose a few of their old toys to donate to those in need.
4. Daily affirmations: Every morning, say a positive affirmation with your preschooler, whether on the way to school or while you’re getting ready. Some examples include: I choose to speak kind words; being kind makes me feel happy; I can change someone’s mood by being kind; or kindness is important to me.
Learn How to Help Your Preschooler Grow All Year Long
When you want to find a preschool that incorporates emotional play-based learning and inclusiveness, Parkland Children’s Academy is the place. We believe in helping your preschool grow cognitively, emotionally, physically, and socially. This allows them to be the most successful in kindergarten and beyond. To learn more about our preschool or our after-school care program, request a tour by calling our staff at 954-688-5877.