to think getting a private tutor for a four year old is insane?

[mslucy]

I am rarely shocked but heard today that an old friend of mine is thinking of getting a private tutor for her son, who is one day older than DS.

She is a very successful lawyer and only sees her kids at the weekend.

She is already forking out £££s on private school fees, so why the feck she needs a tutor is beyond me.

Shocked and saddened. Want to kidnap her poor ds and take him home to our slightly haphazard household so he can hang out in the park with his mates, watch TV, play video games, read stories, chat to his parents, go to school cake sales and all the other things normal four year olds do.

Has anyone else heard of anything like this?

You shouldn't be surprised that so many mums on mn think private tutoring is 'fine' for a 4 year old.

It's that sort of place. Lots of sneering about competitive mothering of pre-schoolers and lots of academic pushing of older children.

So YANBU. And it's crap that this little boy sees so little of his parents (unless he's got a dad who is at home more than his mum).

But then if she's an 'alpha mum' the possibility of having a child who might be academically mediocre isn't going to be acceptable. That child will HAVE to succeed OR ELSE. So might as well get his tiny nose down to the grindstone now. He's got years of academic pressure ahead of him.

"Plus I still can't get my head round the idea of sticking a 4-y-o in front of a computer game..."

What - your kids too busy modelling dinosaurs out of organic spelt flour and learning how to sing nursery rhymes in French?

In the real world there are loads of 4 year olds who LOVE playing computer games and there are plenty of computer games out there which are designed specifically for this age group.

At 4 my youngest was so familiar with the computer that he knew how to link it up to the family television and stream his favourite cartoons through it.

You're just down on the OP because she's dared to challenge that mn holy cow - the notion that having a shit-hot career and spending 60 hours a week at home might impact negatively on your little children's quality of life.

60 hours a week away from home

Bah humbug. Hate it when you spoil a good rant by posting something with typos in.

Zombie thread resurrected by a spammer

Poor old Spud, you've got your knickers in a knot unnecessarily

Ah cack!

Oh well - gave me a brief moment of knicker-twisted pleasure!

I can’t even count my toes . I would find tutors to pay them to do all the dirty job .

In a selective prep school nursery / pre-school is open to all but from 5 kids need to be able to do specific things before they can be accepted. At DN school they need to know how to apply addition and subtraction/ spell certain words if they went to the nursery (if not they need to demonstrate an aptitude for this during a structured play session), and prepare a short verbal presentation about any topic they want. DN got in with a presentation about why Elsa (from Frozen movie) is better than Ella from the Cinderella movie. She needed a tutor to help her rehearse her presentation and make sure it had the things the school was looking for in terms of pitch, tone etc.

Zombie thread - kid is now 11

Playing video games is not “normal” for 4 year olds and I’m very surprised you consider yourself superior to your friend for this reason.

Whoops! It’s probably more “normal” now then!!

@BathshebaKnickerStickers the child must be 13/14 now! Started in 2010!

actually I have different question :
Is it safer to go to tutors or tutor come to yours or we all go to a cafe ?