(1) what do you tell your kids so they don't get a big head? And (2) at what point do you pull out a kid from preschool? How much should we make him go through for the sake of learning how to cooperate in a class?
1) You have to 'tell' him with experiences, not with words. 1000 perfect words will not convince a bright kid who is forced to spend his time doing activities that are below his or her developmental readiness level surrounded by ND kids who are happy and obedient and getting praised for their behavior that he is not 'different.' And of course that obnoxious big head behavior is half just innocent observation and half an agressive reaction to his difference. Afterall, all the ND kids are being praised for their complacency in tasks that it would be dangerous for him to complacently accept.
2) 4 is much too young to make a chld go through any kind of 'getting along' for the sake of getting along beyond 'no hitting, no mean words, take turns, share, help mommy.' That's it. No more is needed.
I would strongly reccomend that you set up time to observe the classroom and see what is going on there. If it's just that he doesn't like crafts, then you can enterain the idea of keeping him there. I would guess that almost NO ND 4 year olds hate preschool. Preschool is set up so that there are lots and lots of fun things for Normally Developing 4 year olds to do. Teenagers might say they hate school, but it's really unusual before that age. Perhaps a painfully shy kid might hate school, but if a little one is saying that they hate school, this is unusual, really unusual.
It's really really hard to imagine how far out of the norm our kids can be. When my DS12 was 3 he hated daycare. Why? Because he only wanted to use the lego station, and would wait his turn, for several hours a day, doing nothing but waiting his turn. I had no idea that this wasn't normal behavior, afterall, my DS had slowly been wearing me down for the last 3 years. I never imagined that a system which was designed to be fun for 3 year olds wouldn't be fun for him. We tried to convinse him that he should do his 'second-favorite thing' some of the time. I don't even remember if that worked, but I doubt it. DS just learned to stop complaining. Our family really needed him to be in care at the time, I was working and exhausted, and we had no idea why he was so unusual. I didn't get the gifted thing until he was 7 years old. It was a long strange stretch. Looking back, if we had been able to suggest moving him to the next older group, I think it would have solved his problems. Who knows if it would have created other problems?
Anyway - The majority of Preschools have books with lists that match up toys and activities to various ages. The teachers are trained to make 1-1 corespondences between age and 'what the child needs.' I tended to look at them as the experts on kids. As skilled and experienced as they are, there is a whole world that they don't even see.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
