Stopped to chat with my sister the other day, and she was really excited that her 4y.o. got into the local 'fun-but-serious' partial-day preschool. I was very excited too, she had told me about it a few days earlier and how hot-and-heavy the registration process is, etc. So I congratulated her and was listening diligently to all the talking points the director had gone over with all the families, when she started explaining how the director was very serious about parents giving their kids the 'gift of time'. How even kindergarten-age kids with April birthdays might do better with being held back another year. So I am trying not to say anything at this point but she is so bent on my congratulating her over all this great news about her very bright girl who is turning 5 in October getting into this nice preschool that she is ignoring the fact that I've consciously done the complete opposite with my very bright girl.
Now granted if you had the two of them in the same room you would not know they are only 6 months apart.
Knowing her girl has two gifted sisters, and seems really mathy, it wouldn't seem out of place to consider K a couple months early. She is very petite, however, and also doesn't speak with the developed vocabulary or force that my dd has, so doesn't come off as similarly advanced (can not quite pronounce preschool, for instance).
Anyway, the point is, I am not trying to convince her she should consider early K, but I just wish she would not stand there and try to tell me in no uncertain terms that I am robbing my child of the gift of time. Frankly I think when dd4 is 16 and has graduated high school (if things go that way) she might be better prepared to work with the gift of an extra year or so of time than she is right now, so maybe I'm just putting a year in the bank.
This was frustrating, my dh reminds me that she is more insecure in general about things so I can sort of understand her needing to be re-assured, but at the same time I don't really like having this cliched non-argument dropped at my feet and being expected to agree to it. Sigh.
every kid is different, every family, etc., etc., ....
Last edited by chris1234; 02/17/11 03:08 AM.
