Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Advice on preschool

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for all the great replies.

We have done quite a bit of out of home type stuff. We've had in-town babysitting by college kids about 10 hours a week since DS was about 2 months old (I should call it respite care, LOL). It was around then he began with a horrible groaning noise unless he was constantly shown things, read to, etc. The babysitters take him places like the park, library, to their sorority houses, to see friend's puppies etc. So that has been great although he definitely prefers mommy and daddy. Other than that we have juggled things and not had other care.

We are inbetween two towns about 30 minutes to each and then 1 hr to a small size city. We went last year weekly to the city for toddler chinese for 3 months, that was fun. We've done virtually all organized things that are in either town: swim lessons each spring, Kindermusik (DS was not a fan), a wonderful library song/story hour where the un-librarian like librarian the kids with puppets etc. I am not sure why we haven't found playmates at these things, part of it is that most parents work fulltime and are managing one extra thing on a weekend, have not time left over for informal playdates with someone who lives a half hour away.

There are moms clubs (geared towards stay at home moms) in both towns and we've been active with one of them (sadly not allowed to actually join because we are not in the county). There is a moms club in the other town also, much less active and I hadn't contacted them but after reading through all the replies I just did... perhaps I can get them to make it more active or at least use it to get some names of people.

After reading all the responses I feel like we just need to find him a couple of near-aged kids for regular playdates, and that would do fine for the next year. I had gotten discouraged as I think I started to look for playmates for him starting when he was about 9 or 10 months old, probably way ahead of when other local parents do -- he has just been so needy for stimulation since the beginning. I haven't gone so far as to put an ad in the paper... that seems so drastic, LOL.

On the plus side for where we live we see plenty of Jemima Puddle Ducks and Foxy-Loxys, we pick blackberries out the back door, watch blossoms turn into apples and bake them into pies, etc. All things considered, I wouldn't trade it.

Reading through the responses it sounds great to look forward to when he is 3 and has options like camps. Around here those types of things tend to start at age 4 so I figured that was a long way off -- but I bet our nearest city has some camps for 3 year olds. Thanks so much for mentioning that.

He enjoys games like, "I see something that starts with", hide and seek, matching games or bingo type games, acting out stories, etc. If he could be in a well organized teacher led group that does activities like that he'd love it.

My gut feeling is our one option probably isnt' worth it, after reading all the posts... I can't rule out though that he might just like it anyways.

If I were to start him in the fall just to try it, how many times do think to come to a idea of whether he's going to enjoy it or not? I suppose that must vary with the child but a ballpark? I know there would be an adjustment phase where most kids would not find it fun even if it would be in the long run so I'm not sure when I'd know. Here's where I dont' have enough child experience... Is it reasonable to ask his opinion on it once he's gone a few times?

Thankyou thankyou thankyou for all your comments. Its wonderful to be able to say things matter-of-factly and not feel like I'm making a comparison with other kids or something like that.

Polly

We put our older one in PreK when he was 2.5 We wanted him to start at 3, but when were researching preschools in the middle of the school year we found one we liked and decided to enroll DS right away.

All went well at the beginning. Everything was new, he was all excited, he didn't even want to go home. The honeymoon took only a few weeks. Things went downhill from there. Then he was home sick, then back in PreK, then winter break, back to PreK ... He no longer wanted to go. The novelty had worn off, he was bored, he wanted to be home with me and his brother. He cried, we tried different things, but at the end we withdrew him from there and put him back when he was 3. He was completely fine at 3, but it was a disaster at 2.5. With our younger one we waited till he was 3.

Even if everything seems to go ok at the beginning you may still face problems later on. You may want to ask your child what he thinks from the beginning, but it may be better to phrase it as "What did you like today?" "What was your favorite part?" ...

Like others said two year olds don't interact too much. Your child won't miss anything if he doesn't go to PreK till he is 3 or even 4.

Polly,

My DS now 6 started pre-k at 2 because he drove me crazy and I thought it would be good stimulation/social interaction for him. He loved it for awhile. The Admin was really good and moved him to other groups to do activities generally considered too old for him. By the time he was 3, he'd tapped their resources dry. I brought him back home at 3 for the most part, kept up with the pre-k as a drop-in on occasion.

It seems like with my son (and alot of others on here) you have to look at things in 1/4's. Something that will stimulate an ND child for a year, gets us about 3 months or 25% of the norm.

I have got to agree with Shari - we also started our little guy at a Montessori Preschool when he was 2 because for the same exact reasons (driving me nuts and good social/stimulation)..the teacher he had for the first 2 years was AMAZING and she just kept him on his toes and always challenged...his last year he was moved to a new room and the teacher wasn't very inclined to go above and beyond to look for new things for him and he pretty much tapped out their resources in less than 2 months and quickly became a behavior problem....so we brought him back home...so your statement is perfect "

It seems like with my son (and alot of others on here) you have to look at things in 1/4's. Something that will stimulate an ND child for a year, gets us about 3 months or 25% of the norm".

We are looking at doing a split program with Mr W.

He spent a week at a daycare with mixed kids ages and really liked it - while his regular sitter was on vacation. He learned a lot of positive, new things by emulating the other, older kids. Every morning he would get up and ask when we were leaving to take him to the new place.

So, we are thinking of doing a MWF at the Pre-k with TTH with the sitter for the Spanish immersion and other enrichment.

I just wonder if the shine will wear off for him like it seems to have for the other posters in this group or if the split program will give him more stimulation and keep things fresher for him?

We've looked at the milestones provided for the different locations and he has most of the 2 and 3 year old stuff down, so I wonder how to start the discussion about LOG? Right now we are looking at Montessori-type situation with 2-4 year old mixed groups, but would like to not wait until he is 2.5 years to get him in.

As a test, we've been lying about his age for some groups that do not require proof of age and he fits right in.

And how would we notice early that he was not fitting in?

My kids all went to an in-home daycare. It's been a great experience for them. The woman who runs it is absolutely wonderful, and the stability that you get from in-home care is great. One big benefit is that it's a good bridge to school: things have to be structured sometimes (e.g. lunchtime, taking turns for something), but (in our case at least) the kids get to decide if they want to do arts and crafts or just go play. Everyone does a structured activity at least sometimes and so they learn about working in a group.

Oh, DS9 still insists on going to this daycare place at Christmas and for 2-3 weeks in the summer. Tellingly about its quality, there are a lot of kids from his preschool time who also go.

As a general point, a great way to assess the quality of a daycare place/preschool is to find out how many kids started very young and stay on. A lot of churn in the group can mean that the quality is only so-so.


We've lied about DD4's age this summer so she could go to day camp (you have to be 5). She's tall, mature, reads better than the 5-year-olds and has even lost a tooth. I can't imagine anyone questioning her age. The experience has been a huge success for her, and has been wonderful for helping her develop independence.


It's mostly been pretty obvious with our kids. WHen they make recurrent complaints about other kids, we know something isn't right. These are usually along the lines of "I don't want to have to play with him again because...." These types of complaints aren't the normal stuff where my kids report arguments here and there. They're consistently negative.

If my kids complain about what they do during the day, we know the fit might not be good. Alternatively, when they come home all enthusiastic and showing off their work/art projects/leaf collection/whatever and asking when they get to go back, we know that the situation is a good fit. This idea applies equally to school, day camp, day care, etc.

I didn't re-enroll then-DS6 in the soccer league because I got disgusted with the behavior of the parents on the sidelines. The soccer league got fed up too and started putting up signs saying "Please don't yell during games." Some of the kids would come off the field crying after a game. I decided the environment was unhealthy.

Hope that helps.

Val

Hi Polly, how is your decision going?

I wanted to chime in with our experience, FWIW. DD 2.5 has a late December birthday, so she does not fit well into the school calendar.

I was able to stumble onto a modest (in terms of curriculum - no language immersion, for example) preschool with some amazing attributes.

1. the two teachers have been there 20 years. They've seen it all, including gifted kids.

2. they teach toddlers in the morning and pre-K in the afternoon, so they understand the full range of development.

Our DD was able to go directly to he afternoon class of 3.5-5.5 year olds, even though she was 27 months. I'm not so sure this would have worked out if her teachers only worked with 4 year olds.

One big difference between toddlers and pre-K is style of play. Toddlers usually do parallel play and pre-K kids do interactive. Our DD did both and we wanted her the opportunity to continue to do both, so we expose her to kids her age. I'm not sure about the scientific implications of parallel play, but we think it may be critical to future peer relations, which my DH and I consider important.

Thanks for the information, Val. We decided to do the at-home daycare.




This is funny that you mention this. Mr W gets mistaken for a 3 year old all the time and now that I think about this, this is the reason why.

Hi Seablue,

Thanks for asking. We decided to wait on preschool. We're working still on finding some social opportunities, did find a nearby playgroup but not sure it will work with our schedule. And found a couple more toddler-age classes around the area, again scheduling issues. Overall though there's enough stuff around that DS will get some regular social interaction this year.

The preschool you found sounds wonderful. I'm looking forward to next year here where we will have a lot more options, including one option that mixes the 3-5 year olds.

Polly