Help for a 3 year old at nursery

Tablet/Ipad use in young children is a problem. We are seeing the effects every single day in society. In years to come I think we will look back on it like we do with smoking now and be shocked at what people were doing.

There will be lots of 3 year olds who struggle with some or all of those things. Our DS was born premmie and very tiny. Intellectually he was fine but zips and buttons he found impossible until around end of Yr 1 at school. He went to a Montessori nursery which helped with delayed motor skills overall. He was exceptionally small, 2 yrs behind in clothing sizes. Now a strapping 6 footer

My literally just turned 3 year old isn’t reliably potty trained at all (we’re desperately working on it but it’s not clicking!) but can wash his hands on his own and get himself dressed. Cant yet zip his coat though.
extremely advanced at talking/understanding and also other fine motor skills though, they all develop at different rates and have their own strengths and weaknesses.
I honestly wouldn’t panic op!

You sound defensive. If your child has never used ANY phones/Ipads/tablets then you’re doing a stellar job and no need to feel personally attacked. I’m speaking from extensive experience.

Yes, they should help.

Mine is the same age. He can take and put his shoes on and pull his trousers up/down. Very good at getting his clothes on and off. Also can wash his hands. He is however not potty trained and has limited speech but we do have a year before school!

Some do I've had under 3s do it....but if you never ask them to try they won't. I start by joining up zip holding their hands and they pull zip up independently. Others stick at the needing me to hold the zip together over their hands for a few months. Threading toys really help with this.

Mine has a speech delay. Nothing to do with using a tablet. You sound judgemental.

To an extent but it would also depend on the number of children needing support, staff ratio and if a child has a SEND unfortunately lots are behind and some because parents haven't worked on a skill, that means over stretched staff and less attention for those struggling

This sounds like the list of things my nearly four year old was expected to do when she started pre-school last September. She couldn’t do many of them when she started but by October half term was doing all of it, she learnt so much quicker from other children. The staff didn’t seem to mind helping her and never mentioned anything to me about her development being delayed.

Don't forget that most things in public loos are NOT designed at 3 year olds height, nor are most normal house bathrooms. Nursery and reception-year 2 areas will almost certainly be designed with the kids' probably height in mind!

Once upon a time yes. But sadly due the reasons I stated, most children don’t have the development of the fine motor skills needed to be able to do this. It was never an issue years ago.

My DS just turned 3 and would need help with most of these.

For example he can take his shoes off (and put them away) and put on wellies. But he can't get his feet into his shoes by himself yet.

If you hold his coat he can put his arms in. And can unzip it and take it off. But he wouldn't be able to put the end of the zip in the zipper so would need help with that.

I honestly don't think he is behind at all. He's not really advanced either, but totally within the range of normal when compared with his peers and making steady progress in becoming more independent.

He's in a day nursery and no-one has ever raised it as an issue. He's starting a school nursery soon and it's not been raised as an issue on his settling days there either.

I do agree with the zipping up coat one - many primary age kids struggle with that! They just don’t bother to zip it up and flap around with it though 🙈

For the right and left feet issue, have you tried this method?

https://lifehacker.com/help-kids-put-their-shoes-on-the-right-feet-with-the-st-1834777298

We used a sharpie on the insole to draw an picture and it helped my son enormously. He still didn’t know left from right but it meant he could put his shoes on!

I’d expect the soap dispensers to be easily operated by a preschooler in a nursery. If your child can’t do zips get them a coat with a Velcro “storm flap” so the zip isn’t essential.

You expect a 3 year old to independently zip up their coat?

I work in a school nursery. At the new parents meeting in July we ask parents to work on all of the above skills during the summer with the expectation that most children should be able to do those tasks at the age of three that don’t have any additional needs.

Sadly a lot of children don’t have the fine and gross motor skills needed for such tasks because they simply don’t build the muscles needed in their hands due to being on phones/tablets/iPads for large amounts of time. No child under secondary school age needs one!

We have to spend a lot of time working on these skills by doing dough disco, tinkering tables etc. I’ve been a nursery nurse for 22 years and it’s become a huge problem over the last five years.

Don’t get me started on the speech and language delays or attention span deficits they’ve caused too 🤦‍♀️

I’m really surprised by these responses - I would have thought most just turned 3 year olds would still need a bit of help with these sort of things!

I do also think they learn very quickly at this age, especially when they are in a scenario where they have to do it themselves and all their friends are doing it as well.