To think school should’ve let me keep ds4 back a year?

@arethereanyleftatall most people don’t defer though (in England)

I never understand the ‘he gets stressed’ excuse. Would you rather he got a bit stressed at home, with you, while learning the perfectly age appropriate skill of potty training and non-reliance on dummy, or got massively stressed at school in front of his teachers and peers without you there. You’ve opted for the latter - why?

I'm not sure aibu was the right area for your post op. Some people on here are so desperate to stick the boot in that they have nothing constructive to offer

My little girl is autistic and she still struggles now getting into school at year 5. However, in reception, it did sometimes help when she went in with a friend, or I made a game of her getting to the door first.

Ask the teacher or even ta if they have any tips for helping to get him into school a bit more settled.

And as for the dummy, my daughter still had hers at night in reception sometimes, she gave it up when she was ready and her speech is just fine

It's still very very early days, so plenty of time for him to get used to things xxx

dh thinks im overthinking but i just hate seeing him cry and clingy at school

You need to start treating him like the 4yo he is. He's not a baby anymore.

I sympathise because children vary so much. My January born son was far less ready for reception than my May born daughter. The first term was a huge stretch for him - but I am so proud he rose to it.

You do need to push your child on a bit. It’s not fair on anyone, least of all him, to be in school in nappies. Assuming no SEN as you’ve not mentioned that, he is old enough to understand and you may as well spend the rest of the weekend on potty training. No more daytime nappies, it’s the only way. You can’t keep putting nappies on him during the day, he needs to know when he’s having an accident and learn to understand his body and head for the toilet when he needs it. Sorry if I’m stating the blindingly obvious.

In reception, my son also wouldn’t pick up a pen, wasn’t interested to learn to read or do phonics. Teachers are amazing and a couple of years on he’s doing really well.

Are you sure nursery had nothing to say about a 4.5yo in pull ups and using a dummy? Are there concerns about additional needs?

deep breath @BulletinGuru It can be a bit harsh around here.

but there is good advice and you may need to hear it.

You can definitely help him to transition, as said ditching the dummy in time but much more important is to get the toilet training nailed. Staying home for a few weekends and really being on it and not using pull ups during the day will have it sorted.

for bed time I’d be inclined to leave that and the dummy until you’ve achieved reliable dryness during the day. One thing at a time.

it will all be ok, he will settle. Reception is learning through play and he won’t be expected to start writing paragraphs or quadratic equations. They’ll be introducing the expectations and getting them gently used to sitting and listening etc.

Unless your birthday is in the first 6 days in September every child will be 4 years old.

“Reception” also used in some states in Australia

I agree with this. You knew he would be starting school in September so you should have toilet trained him ages ago.

My daughter who is 4 was refusing to poo in the toilet but we made the effort to keep trying and mastered it early this year.

I didn’t want her starting school and not being prepared.

Why does he have a dummy at 4 years old? Xx

You can, though I'm in Scotland where the rules might be different. If your child has a birthday in January or February of the year they are meant to start school, you can defer the start and get another years nursery funding. Maybe contact your council Education Dept?

In Scotland the cut off is 1st of March. However we don't have reception up here.
Deferral is for dec-feb born
Edited as posted to soon

Interesting. DD didn’t go to pre-school, she was at a nursery and it felt very different to school, especially KS1.

For me, this is precisely the problem with the deferral system.

there used to be a 12 month max gap, rather obviously we didn’t need the research to know that the youngest would find it harder at a population level.

and then some brights sparks decided to increase the potential age gap to 17 months via the deferral system.

anyone with any sense could see that this exacerbates problems, and simply shifts the month of the youngest from august to March.

this was obviously going to happen.

and now you have a situation with an extremely immature sounding 4.5 year old in the class with 5.5 years old.

absolutely stupid system

I had the same thought as you until I read OP’s update, where it does appear that she thinks he is too young simply because he’s still 4 and not because she’s in Scotland.

Why on earth didn't you make sure your child was school ready?

Pull ups? Dummy? Seriously?

It's time you started parenting OP. He's 4, not a toddler.

If any motivation was needed, that dummy will be hindering his speech. Children need to develop their mouth muscles, and a 4 year old with a dummy cannot do so to the fullest.

That sounds really tough for you as a mum, to have to leave him. I know in other countries kids don't start until the age of 7. My eldest was 4 in the July and started in the September so I felt very similar to you. He coped better than I did. All kids are different. Myself I had barely left my mum's side so I cried just like your son. Is there any chance of a settling in period whereby he goes short days to begin with? X

Aw I feel for you OP, it sounds hard. I can relate as my dd is almost 4 & would no way be ready this year (luckily she is October born though) although she does have additional needs.

I believe school isn’t mandated until the term after they are 5 but they’d then start in year 1 so it could be really counter productive joining an established class.

It’s too late to go back & do something different but you can really work on this now. They’re more resilient & adaptive than we think. We’ve been prepping dd for school next Sep since summer and it’s been less disruptive to her than I expected.

Sadly it’s probably time for a little tough love from you, as we can’t always be the nice guy & need to prepare them for the world. You can be sad about it but he needs you to be proactive & not feed into his worries.

Did your child go to a previous setting (pre-school/ nursery) before starting school? If so did they make any hints towards SEN? At 4 he is really too old to be having a dummy if he is NT and is very late with the potty training unless he has a medical need or SEN. If your DC is NT, it is no wonder they are struggling as they have been very babied and most reception classes have 1 teacher and 1 TA and have expectations of independence. If your DC is NT, you need to ditch the dummy (terrible for teeth and jaw development anyway) and start to build independence. If your DC is struggling to potty train speak to the HV service as they will give you support with this.

My friends DC has just gone into reception is SEN and still has a dummy although she is trying to transition them onto a chew toy rather than a dummy and isn't consistently potty trained and will only poo in a nappy. He has a care plan in place at school. His nursery made a huge push to potty train all the children who were still not potty trained and who were going up to reception in last summer term. My friends DC was one of them. They received a lot of help from the HV team over the summer.

Mine was tiny at just 4 and he used to fall asleep in lessons. They just take time to settle, give it a month and see how he gets on.

I'm very confused that your priority is him being able 'write well' rather than getting him potty trained and ready for school.

As someone who lives in such a country, most children are in pre-school fulltime from the age of three and its very similar to pre-school, reception and KS1 in England.

We don't just use our hand when we write. We use our whole body...we use our other hand to steady the paper for example. School won't be expecting him to write straight away. They will be working his gross motor skills, obstacle courses, big movements, as well as simply learning to grip a pen. Later they will do activities like drawing lots of circles counter clockwise. This is because so many of our letters are written counter clockwise 'e' 'c' 'u' 'a' - it's to help them have the eye-hand coordination to begin to form letters. They might expect letter formation by the end of reception but certainly not at the start, so don't worry about not writing or being interested in writing, it will be a gradual process

I don't mean to sound harsh, OP, but barring disability/special needs, this is a situation of your own making. It's insane to have an able bodied, neurotypical 4.5 year old who is still in nappies and has a dummy!

Of course the teachers won't change him. It's school, not nursery. Who would teach the rest of the class while the teacher changed nappies?

He should have been trained over a year ago, have you taken him to the GP? Are you not worried that he is so far behind, developmentally?

The dummy I'd have ditched when his teeth started coming through as they can cause teeth to not grow in right.

It sounds like you've babied him far too much and now he is, predictably, struggling with the very age appropriate expectations at school.