Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion "Social necessities" beneficial or detrimental?

You need to decide what is best for your child. No solution is perfect (and yes, I have seen some downfalls to SAH situation - one being a family where the wife could not drive and was by nature on the shy side - their little one was starting to act out at home and trying to follow her dad out the door every time he left the apartment because she was going stir crazy, and they ended up putting her into a part time daycare, which really helped a lot - for both the mother who was getting so stressed due to the lack of mobility outside of their home and the child acting out at 18 months). So it is really what is best for the WHOLE family.

I agree that using the socialization as the argument is not really a strong one, but really, it is what works for the family.

With 2 children in daycare, I have to say, it is unusual even at 18 months to have a room full of crying kids, so see if you can observe the room when it is not drop off. DD is 20 months, and I always make a point to drop off during breakfast, and unless someone fell or such, it is usually just the usual toddler chatter. I have never seen her room where kids were just randomly crying and never more than 1 (usually over a fall, or over a popular toy/book or if they spilled their milk into their lap - this is the age where at daycare, they are learning how to use their spoon and cup so it gets messy).

But we are lucky - DD's teachers go crazy with art projects - which DD absolutely loves, and in novel ways (which we find out at home when I catch her trying to use random objects to use in her artwork and nothing is safe from being used as either a brush or for smearing) and they do books and songs galore, so we have learned some tunes we never heard before.

If the nanny was a good situation, and you could still have some fun activities that he likes with other kids (same age or older), is that an option for you? It did not sound like daycare/preschool was driven for reasons other than the socialization aspect... if so, maybe just returning to the old setup is better - whether it is at 2, 3 or 4 - it is really not going to matter when they need to be able to socialize.