To think this is not amazing parenting

[Notsureatall12]

I have a relative who lives the other end of the country.
She has a 4 year old DD. She is a single parent, stays at home with her. She does not go to nursery or attend any groups or social functions at all. Wider family all live down south and dad not on scene. Family member has few friends, none with children.

Whilst they have an amazing bond, the child never socialises or learns how to interact with other children or knows how to follow the routine that will be expected of her in school.

She always says that this is an idyllic way to bring up DD. Whilst I can definitely see that they must have a lovely time together I can't help but feel that a child needs that additional stimulation, and a break from eachother?
Obviously, it's none of my business really, we're not very close, see eachother weddings and funerals and on Facebook. Also, obviously she is a good parent but what if she wasn't? She lives in a deprived high population area so sees no health visitor, there would be nobody to pick up on any concerns.

AIBU?

[VelvetRose]

The thing is, the situation op describes (and none of us know the people involved) is different to someone who doesn't send their child to nursery or school. She paints a picture of a parent who actively avoids other children. If that is true I'm very surprised that lots of people consider it healthy.

[Ionone]

Yes, but OP lives at the other end of the country, by her own admission, and clearly has her judgy pants pulled up really tight. We have no idea what is really going on, but some of us know that our own children weren't harmed by a lifestyle similar to this. As the child will start school soon in any case, no doubt she will be adequately socialised there even if pastathing thinks it's impossible. It really doesn't take that long for a child with little experience of groups to get the hang of them once they are mature enough to do so.

[Pastaeater]

Yes Ionone - and they are always on the outside of groups, always struggling, always slightly the odd ones out, always avoided by the other children unless there is no one else to play with....and I am not making this up, I see it happen very day while parent are at home congratulating themselves on not having made the effort to socialise their children properly.

[BiscuitMillionaire]

The research evidence suggests that children who go to pre-school do better in later life than those who don't. Obviously this doesn't mean that ALL children who don't go to pre-school do badly, but as a trend.

I often read on MN how we in the UK send our children to school so early - but in fact as I found out from a Swedish friend, in Sweden for example, although they don't start formal school until later, almost all children go to nursery full time from quite a young age, as the vast majority of women go back to work.

Re your friend OP, I often think how unlucky it is for some children, that their parents are free to play out their own neuroses and prejudices on them.

[Flashbangandgone]

Surprised at many of the comments in here tbh. Assuming the Op is correct and her friend's daughter has minimal contact with other children (irrespective of whether in or out of a pre-school type setting) then I strongly believe this is irresponsible parenting. Surely a parent's job is to nurture their child physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially.... Starved of social contact, with no friends at all, she is surely failing in this. It would be like not encouraging my child to develop physically by continuing to feed them, only giving them baby toys, not toilet training, carrying them at every opportunity, and then expecting them to just pick it all up at school!

[Ionone]

Not always, no, Pasta. And correlation is not causation.

[WipsGlitter]

Does the mum not work?

There's a kid on DSs class. his mum is a bit granola/intense and they obv have a very strong bond. He is easily the most unpopular child in the class, lots of meetings with the teacher etc re behaviour and friendships. I think the mum is just totally over invested in his life and this is part of the problem.

[AndyWarholsOrange]

I agree that a formal preschool/nursery setting isn't essential for socialisation but, if this woman genuinely is keeping her DD away from other children, that can't be a good thing. When I was growing up, not many DCs went to nursery but we would spend hours playing with the other kids on our street and I agree that it can work better when there is a range of ages. Children generally like being around other children and I don't think it's healthy to deny them that opportunity. That kind of set up would never have worked for my DS2 who's the most extrovert child I've ever met - he needs people around him, the more the better. Spending all my time with just the two of us would have driven both of us insane.

[VelvetRose]

I know Ionone, that's why I added in brackets that none of us really know. If this is not the case there's nothing to discuss is there? I think it's odd to say that you actively avoid mixing with other children because of attachment parenting and I find it very doubtful that a child in those circumstances would settle well at school. In fact the two children I have worked with who were brought up like this had significant problems and still do. Note I am NOT saying every child must go to playgroup I'm saying it's not healthy to avoid other kids altogether.

[TheOddity]

Meh. Mine goes to nursery in the morning but sometimes I think that period in the morning knocks his social skills more than anything at 3.5 yo. Sometimes he comes home utterly baffled why his little friend didn't want to sit next to him at lunch (he had been 'tickling' his face constantly for an hour because he thought he liked it). Yes, I can explain why not, but he doesn't really listen as he still lacks a certain level of empathy at this age, children under 4 are all pretty egocentric, as is their prerogative.

He learns more about social skills playing playmobil and Duplo with me, or hearing me talk to other parents and children in the park. Social skills are just mimicry really, so as long as he has someone to mimic and isn't locked in a cage like a dog 24/7 I'm sure the parenting is good enough to let him loose in a school at 5.

[saturnvista]

Lol at socialised adequately.

Children are not puppies. It is not a foregone conclusion that they need to socialise with other children to develop, especially with other children who are exactly the same age as they are. We assume it's necessary because they will be going to school, and we want them to go to school at four because it suits us, largely. The government in its wisdom has decided this too, because it suits the economy and free nursery care is a good way to ensure every child is receiving base-line support.

In fact, children can socialise just fine, and sometimes better, with a variety of older and younger people. What matters is that their care-givers are engaged, responsive and happy for them to explore in every way they need to.

My daughter has never wanted to spend time with other children in large groups. I'm not going to force her though I'd be happy if she did. There are many ways to live a good life, many ways to make friends. Our insistence on an absolutely uniform experience of childhood doesn't make sense when people grow up to be so different.

[momieplum]

Yy to saturnvista.

Pasta, I am not sure if you are still reading this, but another way of looking at this is that many people believe that the ability to get on with others and to form friendships is to do with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence can be taught at any age and it would be appropriate for a school to be teaching it, at any age, as well as parents. So if you are still at the school and you think that any of the children are not doing as well as they could socially, then you could say this to an appropriate member of staff so that someone appropriate could start to teach the relevant children the necessary skills?

OP, it is quite possible you are misunderstanding some things in relation to your relative's approach. The key thing is that the child is happy - if that is the case, then vive la difference, I think.

[Pastaeater]

Yes momie I am still on here but I stopped posting as people seemed to get so venomous towards any posters who didn't totally agree with their parenting ideas.
I am still at the school and I have been involved in teaching "social skills" as the school likes to refer to what you are calling emotional intelligence. I agree with you, in theory, that this can be taught at any age but I have to say it was an absolute nightmare trying to teach it to the students we had at the time. (An 8 year old boy, 8 year old girl, 9 year old boy and 10 year old boy taught sometimes separately and sometimes in a small group).
This may have been at least partly because of our lack of experience (although we did undergo some training) and partly because of a lack of time ( this was definitely an issue).
To go back to the OPs original post I think I have changed my ideas slightly about the need for formal pre-school groups; I see that many people on here have gone to a great deal of trouble to introduce their pre-schoolers to different social situations, different people etc and I'm sure that that is very useful. However, I still think that talking to people they meet when they are out and about is not the same as having to share with other children and "negotiate" (for want of a better word) over things that they both want to do, plus take into account the feelings of those around them, as happens in a good playgroup/nursery/reception class. I think that a lot of social interaction outside a group is probably more fleeting than this and possibly not so valuable for this reason, although still helpful to a child.
The OP seemed to be stating that her relative was deliberately keeping her child away from other children, and I just can't see how this can do anything other than make life more difficult for the child when she does start school. In schools at the moment, in my experience, there really isn't much time or money to spend giving extra help to children like this.

[saturnvista]

Pasta I take my little girl to a home education meet-up once a week or thereabouts. She has to turn-take, share and negotiate there and I would say she has a higher quality of learning as a result of the people in question not exactly the same age as her because they can challenge her in different ways.

[Pastaeater]

Well saturnvista that sounds great. For what it's worth I think that mixed age groups are excellent; the school I work in has two multi-age classes so the children are always with a range of children of different ages.

[saturnvista]

Are some children not just innately more socially intelligent than others? I'm thinking of some home educated children I know. One is very shy but no more so than plenty of children I've known in school. Another is a social animal. I could go on. One thing they definitely aren't is more selfish or poorer at sharing. If anything, they have unrealistically high expectations of how much other children will be prepared to negotiate fairly! They are also polite, funny, articulate and phenomenally engaged in their learning, despite not 'having' to study anything. But my point is that their mum decided from their birth that they wouldn't do formal education at all and this lack of 'socialisation' has plainly not handicapped them at all.

[TwoOddSocks]

The most important relationships at that age are with adult care givers rather than other children, this is where they learn empathy, self control etc.

I think for most kids it's nice to have the chance to socialise with other kids too - how much depends on the child. I think in general we over emphasise the importance of "socialising" for very young kids (i.e. between 0 and 2) for them it's much better to be spending most of their time with adults who know them well.

From 2 and especially after 3 it's nice for kids to have a chance to socialise, but it still doesn't need to be the majority of their time. I don't think it's ideal to have no time at all with other kids but at least she has a great relationship with her mum, in the long term that's going to be far more important.

She's going to school soon anyway and there's such a huge variation in social maturity in YR anyway (an immature kid whose just turned 4 is a world apart from a mature one who is about to turn 4) so she'll soon catch up.