I was talking with a friend who is a preschool teacher and she really believes in the benefits. I know she scored as gifted as a child and her daughter seems to be advanced, too. My friend says her daughter loves preschool. Her DD has been going since she was a toddler.

My initial reaction was "No way! DD is too young!" but she wore me down. DH had the same reaction. He said he doesn't want to send his baby away from him. DD is only 14 months old and still breastfeeds a lot. But I'm concerned because we don't see other kids often enough. Our play groups meet 40-45 minutes away and DD still mostly hates the car seat. I should probably work on hanging out with the neighbors more...

So thoughts on preschool for socializing?

If you don't need it (for childcare) and your child is happy at home, I'd say "no thanks." Developmentally, at this age, they will engage in "parallel play" but not really play "with" another child until sometime after the age of three (on average). They won't really develop "friendships" so interacting with other kids at the playground, even if it is new kids each time, is almost as beneficial as a preschool setting.

If you child is gifted, you'll be much better able to nurture her unique gifts at home than a teacher will be able to do in a preschool setting where she has the needs of a large group to consider.

Maybe reconsider preschool when she is three!

I agree that as long as you're happy at home there's no need to send your child to preschool - she'll be fine!

[quote=Kathie_K
If you child is gifted, you'll be much better able to nurture her unique gifts at home than a teacher will be able to do in a preschool setting where she has the needs of a large group to consider.
[/quote]

I don't entirely agree with this - I do agree that you can nurture your child's unique gifts at home, but we also had some wonderful experiences at preschool for each of our children. Our preschool groups were never larger than 6-8 children per teacher, and usually were combined in a way such that there were 2 teachers and not more than 10 children in the class at any given time. In our case we chose Montessori, but I think the kind of preschool doesn't matter as much as the staff and the setting. Perhaps we were lucky, but we've had friends who also had great experiences with preschool at other schools in our town, so I don't think we were unusually lucky in our experience. Overall, for our kids, preschool was a great experience because they had the security of another set of adults who loved them, combined with the social aspect of being with other kids which in turn spurned their creative imaginations. Yes, they would have been fine at home, but they also did well having some place different to go and having the extra kids to be with. It also gave me a chance to refresh and recharge which, when my EG ds was preschool age, was extremely helpful - he was one of the kids who questions things intensely all the time and never stops thinking - he was so much fun to be with and I loved that about him, but it was honestly also quite exhausting!

And they would have been ok at home too - just wanted to point out, preschool doesn't have to be a second tier choice, it can work out well.

polarbear

I would probably classify "preschool" for 14 month olds more as "daycare" renamed for marketing purposes. At this age I enrolled dd, who was AMAZINGLY social, in Gymboree, music classes, programs at the library and swim lessons. All were parent/child programs so we met a large number of moms with kids very close in age. We ended up forming an incredible play group and at the age of 7 many of those babies and moms are still our best friends. Interestingly I believe that most of the kids have also turned out to be gifted although we originally became "a group" because of similar parenting style and matched temperaments of the kids. It worked out great for us.

I put DD in a 2s program when she turned 2 in Sept. And I do not regret it. Although I had "buyer's remorse" the first couple of weeks. Her separation issues lasted a few days only, I was crying as I left for 3 weeks.

As an extrovert, she really liked being with kids but it was a playgroup. And I recommend that at this age. Even though she started reading and was ahead, just the whole play, socialization is something that is age relavent.

It's possible to over-interpret the parallel play thing. It doesn't mean that they're not interested in other kids, aren't learning from and about other kids, and aren't developing individual relationships with particular kids. Not to say that a preschool setting is developmentally neccessary at that age, but if they do go, they get something out of it.

Are play groups just as good? I do have access to those and other events once in awhile.

I don't think *I'm* ready to let her go anywhere during the day and it seems unnecessary to do it in that case. My friend suggested I need to "cut the cord" a little. Even breastfeed less. But I don't want to... It still seems fine.

DH was horrified when I brought up day care / preschool last night. He said.. "She is too young! That's ridiculous! I'm NOT sending my baby away from me."
He's become very attached since he became unemployed and is watching her most of the day.

He and I are also very into the idea of homeschooling and even unschooling to a certain extent, so it sounds even crazier that I asked him that. I'm just trying to be truly open minded about it.

I don't think I'd want to make general pronouncements, but our experience was that DS was in nursery nominally full time from 10 months until he went to school. In practice DH and I had flexible hours and he'd be there typically there 10-4ish, less to start with. He took a few weeks to settle in, but after that he loved it almost always, and still talks fondly of it (at 8). Of course I don't know how he'd have been without it, but my intuition is that it helped him hugely with forming relationships and generally interacting both with other adults and with other children. I think we were lucky with the nursery: they had very low staff turnover, so he formed real relationships with the staff, most of whom were impressive; the nursery was attached to the university where we work, and so I think "gifted enriched"; and they made almost no attempt to do academic things with the children, so his being ahead there was never an issue. They were age-sorted inside, but they all played together in the garden a lot, and he often played with older children there. Indeed, the worst fit was the last year, when he was one of the oldest children there. He was a late talker, so he never experienced the frustration of trying to hold conversations with completely non-talking kids. If I have to put my finger on one major benefit, I'd say that it was that he got plenty of practice in *not* always being the centre of attention, instantly responded to etc. - he's very good at self-entertaining and fitting in (much better than either parent at the latter ;-), and I credit nursery for starting him off on that path.

Of course. In your original message you said you were having trouble finding enough groups and things, but at 14 months I wouldn't even worry about it too much yet.

Don't listen to your friend. Kids don't need you to "cut the cord." If they experience secure attachment when they're little, they become plenty independent in their own time.

If you don't need the childcare hours, and you don't want to do it, and your kid is happy, I don't see any reason why you should feel like you should do preschool.

Weelll... I agree with the last part, but not with the first. "Playgroups" in the sense that islandofapples means are, I think, mother-and-child occasions. I don't think that interacting with other people in the presence of your mother is remotely the same as doing so in her absence. At some point, you do have to learn to do that - but it doesn't have to be at 14 months, and in fact children who never do it before starting school generally do fine too. I think you consider all the options carefully, and do what feels right.

Totally agree with MegMeg here. What you need to do is to be alert to signs of growing independence and encourage it as and when your child is ready - pushing it is counterproductive. (FWIW, DS breastfed for more than 3 years after starting fulltime nursery. For me, 2 years old was the point at which I consciously shifted from feeling he pretty much had a right to breastfeed when he wanted to if I could make it possible, to feeling that my preferences mattered significantly too. Worked for us.)

I agree. I do think it's worthwhile to keep the issue on your radar, in case you feel differently later.

Every child is different, and so is every family, so I hesitate to offer actual advice. But I can share our experience: We tried a "toddler preschool" co-op when my daughter was 18 months, and realized within a few weeks that it was a terrible idea. She is highly sensitive and very intense, like many gifted children, and at that age, like most toddlers, she was not very good at managing those things. The chaos of the environment, with all the noisy, active toddlers and hundreds of toys was overstimulating. She held herself together while she was there, usually by getting intently absorbed in one toy and ignoring everything around her, but as soon as preschool was over and we left she would fall apart emotionally, with wild or defiant behavior, tears, tantrums, etc.

We then tried a Waldorf parent-tot program, which was a completely different story though ultimately also unsuccessful. It was held at the teacher's lovely home, and the environment was subdued and quiet, with only a few toys made of natural materials. It proved a terrible fit as well but for different reasons. My daughter has always been extremely physically precocious, and she has a very active mind to match her active body. She would quickly grow impatient with the slow pace and simple, low-key play being offered, and instead would go romping through the house, exploring the off-limits areas if I turned my back for a minute, such as the upstairs bedrooms, the basement, even outside. I became very self-conscious about my child being the outlier kid who wouldn't play "normally" and didn't really fit in.

However, it was a very different story a year later (age 2 1/2) when we enrolled at an emergent-curriculum, mixed-age preschool that emphasizes social-emotional development. That year was fantastic for my daughter. Even though she began the year somewhat still in the "parallel play" stage, she still learned so much there about emotions and relationships by watching the older children and through the excellent emotion coaching the teachers did. As her play became more interactive, she was equipped with a great foundation since she had internalized all that learning. At this point, I would call her social skills and emotional awareness very good for an almost-4-year-old, and I credit the preschool. I don't know that keeping her in one of the toddler-age programs would have made much difference in that regard.

Of course, our problem now is that she's no longer the youngest in the mixed-age class. Instead of learning social skills she's mostly having to learn patience (over and over) because there are so many younger children who are still learning. Patience is a good thing to learn, but I am beginning to question the value of expecting a child that age to have to practice patience for hours and hours every week instead of getting to be engaged and stimulated herself. (For example, instead of bringing things for show-and-share day that truly excite her, she self-edits, choosing items based on what she thinks the "little kids" are capable of handling without destroying.) And all of this is a separate issue from that of cognitive development/learning, which has become highly problematic for us this year.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

P.S. I third the suggestion not to cut, or even loosen, the cord yet. Building a secure foundation in your relationship with your baby and toddler, letting them lead the way toward independence, really pays off later, I can attest from firsthand experience!

My completely unscientific opinion is that many children benefit from some sort of preschool by age 2.5 or 3, but that it is very unnecessary before then. By age 4 or 5, I think it is relatively important. I think kids need some experience with how group environments work before starting K.

DD (just turned 2) just started at a Montessori school for a few hours in the AM two mornings a week. I do not think she would have been ready to part from me any earlier and she still does cry at the initial drop off. That said, she talks about school every day and loves her teachers. I like that it gives her some time away from me with a different group of people and different things to do. Maybe start somewhere next fall but just one or two mornings a week. DD loves museums too much to send her to school every day. Other ideas are botanic gardens classes, Music Together or Kindermusik classes, mom/tot classes where you go with her (we go to one and have been since the fall, it was a good transition), museum classes... ect. Everything mentioned you go with your child but they can be pricy. An alternative is creating a learning play group with 1-2 moms where you each come up with a "lesson" for your week to host. Just some thoughts!

DS started at 3 - 2 mornings a week. He would not have enjoyed it before then as he could not understand why the other children could not/did not talk and play like he did. He was always very careful and did not like the seemingly random acts of violence/impulsivity of the other toddlers. We did play groups etc but it was to be honest more for my benefit than his. At 3 he coped much better with other children(who were mostly 4-5) and his social confidence with kids really grew (always fine with adults). For a child with a different personality it might be completely different but I will always be happy he stayed home as long as he did.