AIBU to not send her to preschool

[Misha1998]

trying to decide this. Please help! I hope it isn’t too long. Lot of things on my mind with it all.
YABU - send her in
YANBU - don’t send her

Context - my daughter has just turned three so one of youngest in her year. Very verbal/talks constantly questions etc, inquisitive etc but also introverted and shy and has never been in childcare just family, me her dad or grandparents, but mostly me, looking after her. I have a self employed product business so very flexible and we both do outdoor self employed work that the kids can be involved in and she loves doing it with us. She really enjoys climbing and outdoor play, books, exercises a lot, I think has a fairly fulfilled life we love her lots and while she is sensitive we have been able to be close to help her work through things. she has a 1yo younger sibling and another due in autumn. She has a place in preschool at her future primary school in September but only for afternoons (1-3).

REASONS I DONT WANT HER TO GO
The time she has a place for feels awkward for us as limits flexibility on what we can do for the day as it is slap bang in the middle and I worry we would end up spending more time at home or in our small town instead of getting out to the river, sea etc etc as we usually do. Makes the whole day a school oriented day in a way that it wouldn’t if just the morning. It is also younger toddler siblings nap time so drop off and pick up is logistically hard, especially with. Newborn too. And I personally think outdoor play and physical exercise is more important that the type of things they do at school (crafts, indoor play with toys (she does this at home anyway) and singing). She still is so young g most European countries don’t start school till much later. She has done a few sessions at the school (they do sessions for 2.5yo) and had very intense separation anxiety and says she doesn’t want to go. They said she was ok once inside but her face was so red and blotchy on collection it is clear she had been crying an awful lot and told me this too, and when she went to the sessions for 2y olds there either me or her dad had to stay with her the whole session she was that upset. I don’t want to loose her trust or make her “mask” or shut down and then we all think she is fine when she isn’t as that was what I did at school early years I remember it well it was horrible.

REASONS I THINK SHE SHOULD GO
i am going to be with a newborn and one year old and I think it would be good for her to go to school and do different activities and see children her own age. She knows and socialises with a lot of kids her own age currently but most of them will be in preschool most days full days come September so limited opportunities with them. She loves her younger sibling but of course it is also a limiting factor on what she can do, even more so once newborn comes. It would give me a break from the relentless talking if she was there for two hours a day! I am also worried about her starting reception and being a bit “behind” as all her peers are used to spending time away from mum and dad and she isn’t and it’ll make it all a lot harder for her and if we tackle the separation anxiety and school anxiety now it would make reception easier for her. I also think her having her own space I suppose, doing “big girl things” like painting and having the structure of going could be good for her and make her less likely to resent her younger siblings or be frustrated at home. School can give her something we can’t. We spend most of our days out the house as it is but over winter with a new baby it’ll be more difficult.

I'd send her. It's nice for them to start having their own little friends at that age.

I taught my daughter at 3 (not phonic system - using the old Peter and Jane books). Her reading and spelling age at 8 years old was 17 years (tested by a Senior Educational Psychologist).

Reading is reading and a love of it from an early age is a beautiful thing.

I didn’t get a lot of things right but was always pleased I hadn’t listened to those who warned me I’d interfere with the school’s way of teaching.

And while she was doing all that force feeding of reading when did she get to enjoy the bits of her brain that feed her imagination and natural curiosity?

Most children could do what yours did but most parents have more balanced priorities.

why is there always an assumption that reading before school involves forced teaching at the expense of everything else? It’s unlikely to be taking more than about 10mins a day 1:1 and I doubt that has any affect at all on development in any other areas. Most kids are probably spending more than that a day in front of screens. And I’d argue that in a non school setting you could do it without any ‘formal’ sitting down and teaching at all. 2.5-4 year old brains are like little sponges.

An engaged parent, lots of singing of rhymes, reading short poems, playing things like eye-spy and then moving slowly incidentally pointing out some letters in environment or messing about with magnetic letter on the fridge then occasionally doing the same for running your finger under a word in the environment will probably get most kids there or almost there in the early stages. And even if it won’t get most children reading it will get a few of them there way quicker than you would imagine.

obviously if you have a voracious reader who then reads at the exclusion of everything else then you might want to restrict it. But IME those kids are camped out near the book case begging you to read or ‘reading’ whether they can actually read or not anyway.

1. I am tempted to defer school setting until reception, then do half time at reception (which I know this school has allowed for others). then full time the term after she turns 5 (sept term of year one)

A year a long time for them to develop and grow so she may be in a completely different space this time next year.

However I'd worry this would be more disruptive than helpful. While my kids were in primary in Wales they started school in England so it may be different and kids who they allowed to do this has underlying conditions suspected or diagonsed then or soon after - kids who did struggled to cope. I'm sure school will have views and advice nearer the time.

Everything else seemed very sensible though.

I wish I hadn't done pre-school with DD1 or delayed it till later in year but pressue at time to do it was huge - younger two are only a few months older in year but it does seem to make a massive difference at those ages.

Once they are preschool age they settle much quicker than when they are two. Two year olds are the age group that find it hardest to settle (on average).

Preschoolers generally enjoy being with their peers and are starting to play together really well. Mine only had 15hrs a week (as was standard when they were little) and that is plenty to get them ready for school. School readiness is about being able to dress themselves, help themselves independently with toileting and food, and listen to instructions more than knowing how to write, phonics etc.

You do presume a lot! Reading feeds the imagination - and I could never force my child to do anything she did not want to 🤣

But why? Just why? What does a child gain by doing this?
This obsession with getting skills acquired as soon as possible seems pointless to me.
My youngest was reading fluently before school simply because she had much older sisters and when she asked them what a word said they told her, as of course did I when she asked, so she absorbed it naturally. Fine. No problem. Till she went to school and was bored to tears... so nothing gained at all.

The OP has also outlined the many ways that her child interacts with peers, so preschool will gain her nothing in that regard.

Let our children be children... they will have plenty of time to be adults! Give them their freedom while they may!

Away with all this rush, rush, rush!

We live in a very competitive world ... children need shielding from this as long as possible.

I can see that preschool can provide some benefits, however I wonder if those benefits can be achieved in a less costly way. I have to ask what is it for, I dont think art and craft is very important and I also doubt the importance of who was there in preschool or not (from a social perspective) come reception. reception is supposed to be school introduction year so why would she need an introducion to the introduction?**

That really depends on your school though, and what reception is like at that school.

I’m in Aus and our schooling systems are State based, so our experience won’t be the same as for those in other States/Territories. Similarly, schools in different areas operate differently due to the demographic of kids.

Were we are/were located when ours went through school, all preschools had to employ 1 qualified preschool educator for every 15 kids. The kids needed to be taught alphabet, phonics, colours, numbers to 20, the concept of grouping, how to hold a pencil with correct grip, how to hold scissors and how to cut out on a line, how to write and recognise both names, elementary computer skills using educational programs (like how to move a mouse, click the mouse to make things happen etc), and certain gross motor skills. Stuff like sitting on the mat without moving for reading time, following instructions, speaking with the teacher, using the bathroom independently and managing their food independently were all on top of that. Then before reception starts, the school they are enrolled to start at needs to do an assessment on each child recording where they are up to as baseline.

The issue in my area was that EVERY kid (literally, unless there was a severe disability) went to preschool so they were all up to the same level on starting school. That meant if your child had not, they were an outlier and the teacher had to try and sort that out, work with them basically delivering the preschool program, while simultaneously progressing the rest of the class from a base that was much further on. It’s area dependent though, there are areas in my State where preschool rates are low so the reception classes will not be starting with kids who have been through the preschool program, so a child would not necessarily be at a disadvantage starting school if they didn’t go. Broadly speaking though, that is mostly lower socioeconomic areas, and the State government here is trying to look at initiatives to get a lot more kids into preschool in those areas for the preschool program before starting school.

But you’ve done exactly the same thing with your youngest there that you are criticising others. Why did you provide stuff for her to read fluently if you thought it would be developmentally inappropriate for her? The answer is almost certainly that you didn’t think about it at the time you were just following her lead because she was interested. And I’d guess that’s the same for the vast majority of children.

I never got the MN angst about this. Do it don’t do it. Don’t worry if you haven’t or they show no interest. It makes not a jot of difference to their long term reading or academic achievement or any other area of their development. As a general rule of thumb, the children who’ve been taught to read before starting school are not the ones that reception teachers have concerns about in other areas of development or who are missing key experiences. Whatever the myth still says.

With a newborn and a 1 year old, it’s a no brainier… I think you’ll appreciate not having to manage 3 young ones for the whole day…

No obsession. I had been reading to her since she was born (lovely quiet time) so 3 years before she became curious about it.

According to you, parents should stop this in its tracks and let the (already stretched) teachers who only have our children 20% of the time fit in everything.

If your child is ‘bored’, maybe ask for an appointment to discuss a higher level book 😊

I did all of this sort of thing with both my kids, and I think it really depends on the child.

My eldest (now 6) was reading simple CVC words before his third birthday, could read one of the Reception class readers and pass the Y1 phonics screening test before he started Reception, and is now on the highest reading level in class, equivalent to the end of Y5 at the end of Y1.

He is a real perfectionist when it comes to writing and drawing, and although he can write pretty well at home when it's something functional like a postcard or shopping list, will often just refuse to do written work at school. His teachers have asked us to pursue an ASD diagnosis for him.

DC2 is starting school this September and turned 4 in April. He can recognise his name and the letters in it, but that's pretty much it. However, he's much more happy to have a go at colouring, crafts, and writing his name than DC1 ever was. He loves stories and will happily narrate picture books he knows, sing songs, recite poems etc. Just no real interest in reading so far.

I am expecting DC2 to have a much easier time in Reception and Y1 than DC1, because his pre-reading and writing skills seem to be at a more average level across the board than DC1.

Maybe notable that DC1 went to a lovely private nursery where all activities were open ended and no real pressure to engage with them if they didn't want to, whereas DC2 is just finishing a year of the preschool attached to DC1's school.

That sounds like an extremely sensible plan and it does make a difference that you are in Wales and not England.

It was me that mentioned the EC. Largely because I could feel your worries about that decision coming through that list of cons and the phrasing of that part made me wonder whether you might have been looking for something to justify not sending her. From your last response it doesn’t sound like you are or are anymore.

she sounds like a lovely, bright articulate but sensitive child for whom this might always be a bit more difficult than for other children. Hopefully your stepped approach can help her bring some of that confidence she has pushing herself with physical challenges to challenges like this.