Savvy Parenting : Being Savvy Home The Savvy Source for Parents

Walk into a preschool or kindergarten classroom, and you are likely to see a poster of classroom rules up on the wall, printed boldly with colored markers, and decorated around the border with the kids' own artwork. In many schools, teachers and children generate these rules together early in the year, they talk about what the rules mean, and they revisit and revise them as the months go by.

Each classroom's credo will have its own style, but many will include points like:

We play safely
We are respectful
We work together
We take care of our friends
We take care of our school

These ideas are so simple and basic that it is easy to pay little notice to this aspect of a school. And yet, small children coming together in a mini-society where they more or less agree to follow a set of rules of behavior is a remarkable thing. Kids in a well-run preschool see themselves as part of a larger whole: they enjoy and take pride in contributing to making the classroom run smoothly. They are expected to do jobs, pick up, share toys, talk about disagreements, and respect the rules. What upright little citizens of the classroom they quickly become!

For parents, just observing the satisfaction children take in contributing to the well-being of their classroom is inspiring. Now if only we could figure out how to cultivate this kind civic pride in our very own homes! Not to mention in the world at large....

Here at Savvy, we think this is an inspiration worth following. So this week and next, we'll be asking ourselves what we can do to promote the kind of respect, kindness, cooperation at home that preschools manage to bring out in small children. We'll explore the benefits of family meetings and family rules, age-appropriate chores and allowance, recycling and community service; we'll offer book recommendations for kids and parents, and delve into the specifics of how preschool teachers keep the coalition together and keep it fun at the same time.

We hope you'll join us, and let us know how you mange the boisterous body politic at your house!