Thank you everyone for your responses, much appreciated.
Our son's quirky personality is probably what we consider the biggest wild card in this decision making process. As previously mentioned (in another thread, I think), he has ongoing psych appointments to help deal with perfectionism and learn to self-regulate his intense emotional reactions. This in itself is enough to make me want to give the school a heads up. However, the somewhat perplexing thing is that these intense reactions rarely take place outside our home - it's like he bottles everything up until he's safely with us, then absolutely explodes. I'm certain that the preschool staff would think I was joking if I told them, as according to them he 'always has great days - pleasure to have in the group'.
The other thing is, DS3 has only experienced open-ended, play-based learning to date at daycare and preschool. His academic exposure has primarily come from activities of his choosing at home. He alternates between wanting to learn math concepts (he calls this 'playing number games'), practising 'sneaky' reading/writing or inventing things. As such, I have no idea how he will go when he discovers that his math/language/science 'games' are subjects that others need time to learn.
I can only hope that these decisions become easier in time, as DD20mos is already actively participating in DS's activities... Don't even want to think about that at this point
Thanks for letting me share my thoughts!
