Children who have never attended preschool before can find the experience very distressing at first. Kids are very routine-oriented by nature, and interrupting their normal way of doing things by introducing strange new experiences can cause some emotional and even physical setbacks. There are ways that parents can help reduce their kids' anxiety to help them to adjust to preschool. Why the Anxiety? An anxious child may begin hiding, crying, become physically violent, or even regress in their toilet training. These are all manifestations of their fear, which is summed up in two problems: separation anxiety and fear of the unknown. The two are closely linked, but are not the same. Separation anxiety occurs when the child is afraid to let mom or dad go, because they do not know if they will ever see them again. Preschool-age children are at the developmental stage where they recognize the impermanence of things, and they fear change, and the unknown, for that reason. They ...