To think it’s obvious which children don’t attend nursery?

[Omgshesaidthat]

I met up with a group of mum friends yesterday and it just got me thinking how to me it’s so obvious when a child doesn’t go to nursery.

From the group, only one mum didn’t go back to work after her maternity leave - at the time I felt quite envious but seeing her boy compared to the rest of the group now they are all 2 has made me think that I’m not actually so sure that being at home is such a good thing.

For example he’s not potty trained yet whereas the rest of the group are well on their way or totally dry and his speech is nowhere near as good as the others - even with things like numbers & alphabet, DD is parroting it all back to me whereas this little boy isn’t yet.

We did an organised activity and all the other children in the group sat nicely & listened and then participated whereas my friend’s boy just did his own thing the whole time.

My friend is a good mum and she does take him to playgroup and sets up little activities for him at home so it’s not like he’s just sat doing nothing all day. But it just felt quite apparent that you can’t recreate that nursery setting at home and the impact of children being in that environment and surrounded by other children is huge for their development.

Don't think OP is coming back to re-enter the debate. Hopefully because she has realised her generalised assertions made following some highly scientific and expert research at one playdate is a total load of rubbish.

no, it wasn't obviously he wasn't in nursery, it was obvious he was developmentally behind his peers in this moment. DS went to nursery at 2, at 4 he was developmentally behind his peers, including those who didn't go to nursery until 4. at 11 he's largely caught up, and it was time at home during COVID which helped. this child might always have been behind his peers even if he'd been in nursery 40 hours a week from 4 months old with a private tutor at the weekends 🙄. you're confusing causation with correlation.

It’s glaringly obvious the OP has never read anything at all on the subject…

Mums feel guilty whether they return to work or not, it's part of being a good parent. You say you're not being judgey but you've just judged SAHMs for giving their children 1to1 attention at home instead of sending them to nursery, not every child at 2 is potty trained (whether they're in nursery or at home) they often have the attention span of a goldfish (whether they go to nursery or not) and speech development varies widely at that age (whetherthey go to nursery or not)
You do what's best for your family and let everyone else do what's best for their families without judgement!

It is obvious OP, people who work with children (including me) will agree with you, others won’t because they don’t see it. My friend is SAHM and her child is feral, is awful with other kids etc and my dd who is a year younger runs rings around her dc.

I dont think you can generalise based on two chilidren.

There have been loads of replies from people who work with children who disagree with OP completely.

I worked in childcare for many years (nursery nurse, nanny, preschool assistant and a childminder) I've seen many many 2 year odds and cannot say that children who go to nursery are consistently better behaved and ahead of their peers, it really does vary a lot at that age. The most mischievous toddlers can grow up to be studious young adults and the ones that were ahead of their peers at 2 can end up being average academically and not very sociable

I'm actually embarrassed for you if you think one example is the same as making that statement true.

You are saying the complete opposite to every other child care worker I've ever spoken to. Me included.