My DD is 4.5 and when she was 3 in preschool she had a very similar experience. She, however, stopped doing things at home, too, for a while -not just reading. We found that she didn't really "socialize" in school and spent most of her time in solitary endeavors, because the other kids didn't understand her and it was just better that way. (Her words paraphrased). We decided not to re-enroll her once the semester ended and it took about 9 months for her to get (mostly) back to being her old self.
Now we are part of a homeschooling group and she meets with and plays with a variety of children. The chance to play with a bunch of different types of kids, and meet different people, has helped her come out of her shell. While a preschool classroom certainly contains different personalities, there's a different element when an assortment of settings are included along with different ages and abilities.
In other words, "keeping her home" won't harm her abilities to meet other people and learn important social skills. She'll be able to do it in a real world setting and will have you as her primary role model, instead of learning from other 4 year olds who are also learning these skills. There is no law saying that a child must go to preschool. Unless you *truly* feel that she'll be deriving some benefit from going to preschool, why continue to send her when the experience is teaching her that it isn't okay to be herself?
If you need ideas for things to do at home, start a play and/or homeschool group, etc. please freel free to send me an e-mail. (I used to run a large parenting group 200+ families and now co-organize two homeschool groups ~130 families.)
Mizzou
Last edited by mizzoumommy; 12/09/08 10:49 AM. Reason: clarity
