Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school SO says DD is perfectly "average" but..(long)

Mana, your dd will be fine having a caring and involved parent like you as her mom

Re the preschools, my suggestion is to visit and consider as many different preschools as you can find - even if the first glance just from an ad or the building doesn't seem like it's what you're looking for. All three of my kids spent many years in several different preschools, and not one of those preschools did anything remotely similar to learning by worksheet, learning the alphabet, learning shapes etc. I found very few preschools in our area that were even set up in that kind of traditional academic kindergarten-prep philosophy. Preschool was all about experimental play and things like that. And the cool thing was - there were quite a few other bright kids in those same preschools who's parents were looking for something more than just learning shapes and colors

polarbear

It's not like she's going to run out of math to do.

I don't see a problem here.

Piano and ballet are going to be more of a problem, I think, because they are completely different than reading and math.

There is actually a fair amount if good research that shows that for kids from an enriched home environment, a little bit of high quality pre-school is neutral, but more is harmful to social development.

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Do you have any links for this research? I'd really like to see it. I've always thought this to be the case, but didn't know there was research to back it up. I think early mandatory schooling is not a good idea. I think a lot of bullying, erratic behaviors, and an early turn-off to academics happen with early schooling. I just don't think young kids are ready. I think most kids are ready to play, learn independently (self-pace), and have some social stimulation. But forced lock-step learning before the age of 6-7, I actually don't agree with..especially for gifted kids who seem hampered by the forced learning.

Just curious if you had links...

Mana, I take away quite a different message from that article. Combining the data from the U.S. and Norway, the evidence seems to suggest that there is no negative effect of being in a program that is nurturing, play-based, emphasizes social-emotional skills and fosters attachment of the child to a particular teacher.

(What has skewed the interpretations is the use of socio-economic status of the family as a proxy for the quality of the program. Hence the claim that "even high quality" programs have negative effects, without looking more carefully at differences between types of programs.)

On average, yes, but I think we're looking for unicorns given the prevailing North American commercial childcare model.

Practically speaking, I have difficulty swallowing these studies' results because I question the similarity between the groups studied and my family (and other families on the forum). I suspect parents on this forum are at the upper end of the distribution when it comes to mind-mindedness, empathy, and exhibiting prosocial/pro-secure attachment behaviours.

I've seen some attempts in studies to control for "maternal sensitivity", but that sort of measure is, IMO, an overly broad selection criterion. Now, if factors such as breastfeeding intensity, average intensity of parent-child contact, and average hours of one-on-one contact were accounted for, I would be more convinced.

Huh. I can think of six daycares/preschools right here in my smallish town that meet the criteria I listed. Maybe I'm lucky in where I live, but I definitely think describing them as unicorns is exaggerating.

At any rate, parents should be armed with this information when making decisions. It's not preschool per se that's bad, there are particular things one should look for in a preschool.

Oh absolutely, totally on board with you there!

Assuming that parents can secure a space in one of those schools, it is an exaggeration where you live. It sounds like you are fortunate in your local selection.

That's not the case where I am-- a large urban center, where demand for quality childcare massively outstrips supply. Wait times here are about 2-3 years, on average. The Montessori that best matches the article's criteriasuggests applying during pregnancy, and even that doesn't guarantee a spot. Would I qualify that as searching for a unicorn? Certainly. But I take your point that my local experience may not be representative of the whole.

I think nearly every daycare/preschool markets itself this way, and I've seen parents work very hard to convince themselves that the one their child is in is pretty good... because the alternative is crushing guilt. So I'll take that comment with an unhealthy dose of salt.

My DW sought work at several of these in three geographically diverse areas during DD's early childhood, as a way to provide some extra cash while still being available to DD. Her experiences were universally awful.

In one such experience, DW was assigned to the baby room, where she was instructed that she was not to comfort the children or interact with them. The babies were treated to hours of feeding, burping, changing, and social isolation. Meanwhile, DD3 was getting the usual Lord of the Flies experience in another room.

That's very sad, and it isn't what happens in good babyrooms. But more generally, these perception differences are very odd. I wonder whether it's largely driven by the fact(?) that available daycares suit the needs of some children but not others - and maybe also that whatever these factors are are largely inherited so parents of children it doesn't suit think these places are awful, and parents of children it does suit think they're great?

I think children largely know that they need. Given that my DS was almost always happy to go to the nursery he was at for four years, and once he could speak, told me he enjoyed it, I'm inclined to think it was good for him! (People may enjoy things that are bad for them for a while, but daily for four years? Not sure I believe our brains are that deceptive.)

Another thing: I don't have time to search right now, but I remember reading one of these "daycare causes behaviour problems" papers a few years back. Turned out that the things they classed as behaviour problems included, for example, taking a toy instead of waiting to be handed it. It's not clear at all that this is really a problem, as opposed to being behaviour that's better adapted for dealing with other three year olds than with caring adults! It makes me wonder whether e.g. any of the "aggressive" behaviour observed in children who'd been at daycare a lot might, wearing different spectacles, be labelled "unskilled assertive" behaviour.