If your family is preparing to apply to independent schools, the prospect of your child’s school visit is likely a significant point of stress. Whether they will be attending a play visit for preschool or kindergarten or are preparing for high school interviews, it is always anxiety provoking to imagine your child being judged in these settings. It can feel much harder to anticipate how they will do during an interpersonal assessment with a new adult, or with other students, than on the more standardized elements of the admissions process. There are so many variables in a social interaction that are out of our control.

Additionally, in this part of the process it can feel like your child is being assessed as a person, not just as a student. That is always hard to stomach as a parent! Of course, we want everyone to love our children as we do, so it’s easy to take these assessments to heart, more so than test scores or grades.

However, as hard as it may be, it is important to keep your parental anxiety in check in the lead up to your child’s school visits. At every age, kids pick up on adult stress. This is only amplified when that stress is directly connected to their own performance. If your child feels that you are nervous about an interaction, they will internalize that anxiety and pressure, and there is a good chance it will impede their ability to be their best self at the visit.

So what can you do to help your child prepare for their school visits? The most important thing is to convey calm confidence about the process. This will help them to enter the experience feeling calm and confident themselves.

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Preparing Younger Children for Play Visits

• Talk, Talk, Talk: Engage your young child in language-rich experiences throughout their early years (not just in the lead-up to their school visits). From casual conversation to games that help build their comfort playing with words and sounds, language-rich experiences build ease and confidence when interacting with new people.
• Play as Preparation: Play games with your child that involve turn-taking and following directions, as well as engaging them in more open-ended activities like drawing and building. Most school visits involve a little of both! 
• When to Prepare: Tell your child about the school visit ahead of time, but not too far ahead of time — no more than one to two days before the visit for the youngest children.
• What to Say: Explain the visit in a calm way, using experiences your child already knows and feels comfortable with as reference points. For example, you can say that they will be playing and doing some fun activities with a teacher (and some new friends, if there will be other children at the visit), who wants to get to know them.
• What to Wear: Dress your child in familiar, comfortable clothes, so they are not distracted by feeling physically out of sorts. 
• What to Expect: Find out where parents will be during the visit, so you can let your child know what to expect. For preschool visits, parents are often in the room with the child. For lower school visits, parents are often asked to wait in a reception area. If your child will be expected to separate, consider having only one parent bring them, ideally the parent your child is more accustomed to separating from. 
• To Reward or Not to Reward?: Avoid promising your child a reward after the visit. This often leads children to try to rush the experience in order to get to the reward faster. It can also add pressure.

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Preparing Older Children for Interviews

• Learn Together: Look through the school websites and written materials with your child, and talk about their reactions to the school tours they’ve been on. Encourage them to consider specific features of each school that appeal to them. This will help them to speak clearly in each interview about why they are drawn to that school.
• Encourage Self-Reflection: In the course of casual conversation, help your child reflect on their interests, favorite subjects, strengths, and passions, as well as on how they respond to challenges, so they build comfort talking about themselves.
• Authenticity Wins: Encourage your child to be authentic. The purpose of the interview is for the school to get to know them. Genuine, thoughtful, personal responses will help them stand out more than answers that seem scripted.
• Community Counts: Incorporate conversation about topics in the world in your day-to-day interactions with your child. Schools are looking for students who care about making a positive impact on others, not just about individual achievement. So it’s important for them to have clear ideas about what they care about and how they’d like to make a difference.
• Practice, Practice, Practice: Have your child practice for their interviews by role playing, ideally with another adult. Kids often resist engaging in this kind of activity with a parent, but they will usually be more open to feedback from a teacher, a tutor, or another trusted non-parental figure.

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Most importantly, no matter the age of your child, reassure them that you will be proud of them for making an effort and doing their best, no matter how the visit goes. Remind them that the purpose is not to be perfect but to find a school that is a good fit for them. Ultimately, your relationship with your child will last a lifetime. Though the school admissions process is important, it is never more important than your child’s confidence in your love and support for them.