There's nothing wrong with exposing her to pre-academics if you want to. �Even many parents who's kids self-taught and who would never push them to read exposed them to starfall.com at an early age. �
If you have a touchpad laptop then she's old enough to use the computer and the educational sites are set up for them to self-teach without any help from you. �I've read that if you don't have a touchpad that the wireless mouses are small enough for their little hands to use. �My son absolutely loved hooked on phonics learn to read pre-k cd-Rom last year. �I was surprised at the level of work he was doing on his own while I cooked dinner and washed dishes. �'course now he has a subscription to a 3D online virtual gaming world and no interest in the baby games. �Depends if you want to introduce her to electronics. �My nephew loves Playskools website and PBS Curious George. �Everything's academic for that age.
I would suggest to anyone to work on handwriting early. �Start giving them a crayon at a young age. �Switch it to a marker so they experiment more with controlling the line. �Keep trying to introducing the ballpoint pen. �It takes more pressure than a marker, less than a pencil. �I suggest letting them fist a fat marker until they make nice controlled lines, then introducing the pencil grip with a skinny marker- ask them to make a gun, then you stick the marker inside the pointer finger close to the tip, ask them to close their hand. �This skill seems to cause so many kids so much grief it just makes sense to ease it up on them early, leisurely, taking your own sweet time.
And about your inner stress, sheesh can a mother ever be good enough in her own eyes? �I'm sitting here in the country with a happy healthy kid wishing I lived in the city so I could take him to hear live music at the coffee shop, watch street performances downtown, even just storytime at the library would be nice. Meanwhile they're up in NY over there in the basic skills thread stressed that they might be letting their kid down by not teaching them how to work on a car or at least know the parts of a car so a mechanic can't rip them off. �
