Something very wrong with 3 1/2 year old bilingual DS.

[Chislemum]

Something is clearly very wrong with our 3 1/2 year old bilingual DS.

The biggest concern for us is the difference between the nursery setting and the outside nursery setting in both language and behaviour. He is the youngest in the class (August 12) and was used to one to one (Mum and Nannies) until September.

Outside nursery: DS is a bit shy (just like my husband), but happy and chatty. He mixes languages but speaks in full sentences (you can have a proper conversation)., is very playful with us and the Nanny, and is becoming more and more confident; eg. very confident outdoors and in swimming lessons, happy and playing with (not alongside) other children in playdates and also okay in the hustle and bustle of of his swimming class. He is intuitive and caring and always knows when people are sad, etc. He is also cuddly and loves dancing with his Nanny and is very keen on animals, play-doh, story time and all types of vehicles.

Inside the nursery: Nursery teacher tells me he can't speak at all. When he speaks (he has to report his news in front of all the other children and then doesn't want to say much), then the teacher says he talks gibberish and looks away when she talks to him. He seems to only want to play with cars and doesn't talk to other children. However, he is confident outdoors and we had several comments in his little book that he was "chatty" with his friends with doesn't quite tally. We were also told that he can't sit still for long (which he can do at home) and became "fidgety" after 40 minutes in their recent church assembly.

A relative who knows DS well is a primary school teacher and confirms that he is shy and a bit behind with his English "as to be expected for a bilingual child" but not concerned that he is any special needs issues such as autism. Relative works in a "deprived" area and has worked with autistic, special needs etc children and many bilinguals. She also says that the DS' nursery seems to be "hothousing", i.e. learning things they would only cover in reception in the state sector. However, can this really make such a difference to him? He is doing fine with his letters when at home and now even ok with the teacher.

The Nanny, whom our son adores, says he is tensing up after nursery and doesn't want her to leave in the morning when she takes him there. He also told her (and us) repeatedly that he is scared of the teacher and hides from her in the toilet. In the morning he now asks whether it is a Mummy and Daddy day and when he is told it is a school day, he only says "oh". He has also told me that he wants to go to the "purple school in the fields where the children are happy" and not to his nursery. We just don't know where that is (he may have dreamt this up). What worries me most was that when I said to him that something was "normal", he looked very worried and said that "DS is not normal, no!". I have no idea why he would say that. He also has started to have recurring nightmares (last few weeks screaming "no" and shaking when he wakes). This is new since January.

His Nanny says he is a normal playful little boy and only 3.5 years old and she, in essence, thinks that we should consider moving him to another school (somewhere where "can be a child") and he would be fine and happy again. I can't be that easy.

How can we help him? It worries me how is changing so much and is so different at school. I have contacted a medical centre that specialises in special needs children but wanted to hear from other mothers.

Sorry Chips, didn't get it, no offence intended.

Chisle, your mum sounds awesome!

Hello back to your mother, Chisle She sounds ace! I hope you sort this out okay.

I agree with everyone else. I would take him out of the nursery immediately, so he is not put off schooling in the future. I would let him spend some time with your lovely nanny and then only look at another setting if you are really happy with it. Reception year prepares children for school. They don't need to be anything other than loved and well socialised before that. He can look at letters and numbers when he wants to, rather than being forced to do them, so he learns to hate them.

And I have cared for several bilingual children. It is a gift, not a problem.

The nursery sounds terrible.
Follow your instinct, remove him.

You boy sounds lovely, and developing normally as far as can be told over the internet!
He would be better at home with the lovely Nanny and going to groups, or going part-time to a nursery that understands the importance of play and provides a nurturing environment.

My daughter goes to a lovely nursery. They don't do much formal learning. They do have lots of fun, messy play, dancing, books, trips to the park, making dens, cooking etc. They value other languages and cultures, and do themed activities (e.g. Making Diwali laterns, Polish cooking) where they make a big fuss over the kids who have something different/extra to contribute from their language and culture. Most importantly, I never worry that she doesn't feel safe and cared for. That's the minimum I expect from a nursery!

I feel really angry for you and your boy.

DH is worried that school will tell new school that DS is "special needs" and that they will refuse to take him, etc. etc. DH is a lot more practical.

But your DH is not being practical in this, he is making a mountain out of a molehill. You really can just take DS out of this nursery which doesn’t suit him and send him somewhere else when a place is available. Anywhere else will do! But preferably somewhere less formal and more relaxed, and ideally somewhere that recognises that guddling in mud is an age-appropriate learning experience for most three year olds and that sitting still for 40 minutes in church and tracing names isn’t. A second nursery wont care what the current nursery think of your DS. It didn’t suit your DS and he was unhappy so you took him out, you’re not the first parents to do that and you wont be the last. If your DS also has problems at the second nursery then they will notice and then you’ll know there’s something worth investigating further. But by the sound of things he wont have problems at all.

You can't just choose a school or a nursery on reputation and then trust them blindly for ever after. The evidence is that this individual nursery - or perhaps just this one teacher - really doesn't suit your DS at all. The teacher seems to be seeing him through lenses that are getting more and more prejudiced. So a fresh start somewhere else would be sensible.

DH is worried a new school will not take him after nursery has labelled him "weird", in essence.

And he accuses you of being over-emotional and over-reacting. Is there someone else in the family who could have a word? His own mother? Your relative who teaches?

Honestly, taking your DS out of this nursery is not such a big deal. It's just the next step to take.

Good schools don't label children as 'weird'. There doesn't need to be any contact between current school and new school. Your husband is being a bit of an arseache on this and he needs to step up and sort it.

Is your nanny appropriately trained (I don't mean that to sound snippy, I just mean would DH view her as a 'professional in child development'?)

If so, get her to sit down with both of you and present her views, based on her training and experience. He might listen to someone 'outside'.

But the worrying about labelling is a complete non-issue.

Don't know how it works where you are, but if you take him out of nursery altogether for a few months, then restart him somewhere else, do the new place even get the records from the previous nursery?

I'd give him a break, start him somewhere more child-friendly and play -focused in a few months, then perhaps not even mention the previous false start.

Take your little boy out of the nursery. It sounds like it doesn't suit him at all. This does NOT mean there is anything developmentally wrong with him at all. In fact he sounds just like my own three year old when at home. But unfortunately a miserable child at nursery.

A lot of the things you've said about the nursery make it sound very very odd. He should be jumping in puddles, messy play, story time, painting, building dens. Not tracing his name - he's 3. There's plenty of time for all that.

DD wouldn't sit still in a 40 minute church service - I start to fidget if the sermon goes on too long and I'm in my thirties!

Discuss with your DH but have the courage of your convictions. Your DS is unhappy. That will have much deeper ramifications for his future if not nipped in the bud now than swapping nurseries. He needs to know you'll sort this out for him.

You have alternative successful childcare. Use that and look for a lovely nursery if you want to for a few sessions a week. It's ok for him not to go to nursery at all.

Good luck.

The more I read this I think that your problem might be your DH.

I asked you up thread if your H wishes your son to attend the same schools as he did ? Because I'm struggling to think of a good reason why you are sending your small child daily to a place where is he really unhappy when you have a perfectly good nanny .

I wonder if this is because you and / or your husband can't admit " failure " . And to you, taking your child out of this nursery would be admitting that you made a bad choice and that you are not perfect.

Or do you feel it's would admitting that your child wasn't good enough for their high standards ?

Because it's none of these at all, it's just that the setting is not the right one for your child.

I can't comprehend why you are willing to do all sorts of things like stop talking German to him ( how very distressing for him ) or consult various specialists . But you are not willing to do the very simple thing of keeping him at home .

Most parents could not do this , as they would have no other child care. But you can. Most people might baulk at losing fees but I'm guessing that's not an issue for you.

Just call them next week and say he will be off as he has a tummy bug. Let him stay at home with nanny. That gives you 12 days to see if he is happier.

You do understand , don't you, that all this hot housing is completely unnecessary . I am bemused when I read on Mumsnet about this obsession with push, push, pushing your child when they are barely out of nappies .

Oh we must get them into the most expensive nursery , followed by the most prestigious pre prep. No, they can't possible do any sports or join any clubs or play with their friends because they have hours of homework to do each day . After all they are nearly 5 , they need to knuckle down .

We need to get a tutor RIGHT NOW because she is nearly 6 and not fulfilling her potential . We know she is really really bright and she s only second in her year . We be told her she will fail if she doesn't buck up her ideas . She cries herself to sleep every night because she is not first in everything .

Stress stress stress . Worry worry . Unbearable psychological pressure on tiny children .

Everyone on MN has a child who is at least about average , if not a genius . It's nonsense .

These children seem to have very unhappy and stressful lives , from aged 2-18. And do you know what, they are going to get into exactly the same universities and end up in the same jobs as all the other kids . Who had a normal childhood , then worked hard for the last few years of high school .

If they are bright enough and motivated, with a supportive family and good school, they will make it .

And if they don't, so what? There are worse things in life that not getting into a RG university .

All your anxiety and unhappiness and social pressure to get your kids into the poshest school to mix with the very best class of children wil be for nothing.

And you and they will have missed out on a happy childhood . It's very very sad.

But what does it matter , because you will have had the social cache of having been a parent of a child at X school ?

It's a load of nonsense.

And before you ask i say this as a parent of one child who went to Oxford and now works in a magic circle law firm . And another who has 9A and 2A at GCSE and is just about to sit A levels , which she is predicted to get A AAA.

So they are doing ok academically for just normal kids who had a normal happy childhood, who went to a local schools and had fun .

I also wanted to say that it sounds like a major mistake to stop speaking both languages to your ds. As I'm sure you know, bilingual children can sometimes take longer to start speaking fluently in either language. This is not a bad thing. They soon catch up and then overtake their peers linguistically. If the nursery is any good it should be aware of this too.

Basically their brains are not only having to learn and process two different vocabularies and grammar rules but also the way the two different langauges fit into their lives - what word you use with who, if you want to play cars with a new person do you use the word for car that dad uses, that mum uses or that scarey teacher uses? But the long term benefits of being bilingual are well-proven. Bilingual children seem to benefit from having more than one way of thinking and looking at things through having different grammar and vocabs, which seems to give them enhanced skills across the curriculum in memory, maths, problem solving etc etc not just in languages.

No wonder your poor ds looked bemused when you stopped speaking your home language to him at the weekend. That's his mother tongue . It's the language you've used to nurtutre him from birth, it's the language through which you express your love and he feels deep security and comfort. Suddenly you started speaking to him in the same language as the scarey teacher. It must have been pretty confusing and disturbing for him.

You know what your gut feeling is saying. So listen to it, tell your dh you know what you're doing and you'll have a happier ds.

I have read this thread with horror. Please take your DS out of that awful place. I'd rather suffer the fall out from DH than make my DS suffer.
However, if your DH is angry about it he is being ridiculous, unreasonable, and cruel.
My DS is bilingual (we're an English speaking family living abroad) and he didn't settle at nursery either. However, his nursery had the sense to turn down my money and told me he was unhappy and to suggest that I took him out and give it another six months.
Mind you, we now have problems at the school as his teachers rad insisting I stop speaking to him in English. They sent us to a development specialist (I only went to shut them up) who told me NOT to stop speaking English as that would stunt his English development. Which is what I'd realised anyway.
Parents' evening next week is going to be interesting.

Chisle, when/ if dh reads this, you will have to explain to him just how VERY UNUSUAL it is to get a consensus on Mumsnet. I have seen it only a very few times in my 9 years on here!

When DD2 was in primary 5 (Scotland, so 2 years left at primary school) she came home at the end of the summer term utterly distraught because she had found out she was having the same teacher the following year. This teacher was a job share and there was no word of who the other job share would be. DD2 is dyslexic, but the school refused to admit it. This teacher had told DD2 at one point 'don't be stupid'. I had complained and got nowhere.

Anyway, at this point, I told DD2 that i didn't know where she would be going to school the next year, but she wasn't going back to the local school. (DD1 had gone through without much bother) I would, if necessary, home educate - which I am not a fan of at all. A friend suggested to me that I ask to transfer her to the local Catholic school where DD2's best friend went. I knew the head teacher there (she had been a friend and colleague of my late DM's, who was also a head teacher). It was slightly fraught, as the head teacher was in hospital over the summer, so it was the day before school started that I was finally able to talk to her. The application was pushed through that day and DD2 started her new school.

It was the single best thing I have ever done for my daughter. Her self-esteem shot up. Her class teacher began to rely on her to do certain jobs in the classroom, her classmates voted her class rep for the pupil council and when she was leaving, she was 'valedictorian' for her class. She got help almost instantly for her dyslexia and made huge strides in her reading. She decided of her own volition to convert to Catholicism and went - alone - to the Catholic church on a Sunday morning (I was an organist in another church and could not go and XH was a waste of space) and was soon an altar server. She served at a huge intenational mass in Lourdes with the then Archbishop. She accompanied the current Archbishop to Rome 2 years ago with a small group to see him get his pallium from the Pope. She is in her 3rd year at university doing a joint degree.

If I had not moved her from the original school, I dread to think how unhappy she would have been. Please take your child out of that nursery as soon as possible. I hate that he is so unhappy. He is your first and main priority. Your DH must be made to see this. Sorry for the essay.

We moved DD1 from one nursery to another when it became apparent that the old nursery wouldn't meet her needs. I explained to the manager of her new nursery (when we were looking round) why we wanted to move DD1. She just said 'that won't be a problem here', and it wasn't. DD1's new nursery turned out to be better in so many ways. They embrace every single child as an individual and thoughtfully consider how to meet their needs. There are nurseries and preschools out there that will. Children move for all sorts of reasons and no preschool that you'd want your son at would label any child as weird.

I'm amazed that the nursery told your DS not to play with mud. DD's nursery has a mud kitchen that she loved. It's a great thing for imaginative play, motor skills etc. In summer DD would come home covered in grime from the dust of the mud kitchen sticking to her sunscreen. I firmly believe that children coming home dirty from nursery activities is a good thing. It means they've had unrestricted fun.

My DD started reception in September, but still goes into her old nursery to collect DD2. There are hugs all round with the staff and she loves them. That's how good it can get, so don't settle for what you've got.

As an aside, on bright children. DH and I have fairly academic backgrounds and would like our DDs to enjoy learning and new ideas as much as we have. So in that sense we hope they will be fairly bright. DD1 has been described as bright by various people, so probably is reasonably so. But looking at things like handwriting in her class at a normal state school, she is decidedly average (if not worse). I think she finds writing a little slow and laborious, when she could be talking at a million miles an hour. Having given it some thought, both DH and I were poor at handwriting as children and she just takes after us. That isn't a marker for future potential and nor is tracing an 8 letter name.

I think my approach would be:

1. Stop damage to his self-esteem without burning bridges or freaking out DH by keeping him at home 'temporarily' after half term, but without withdrawing him.
2. You don't need another nursery for him but you do need a reception place, so submit a late application for state school and also start searching for other private schools. Remember that this doesn't need to be the school he will be at forever. He can change later if you think that's best (8 is common).
3. After half term, phone and set up visits to other private schools. I'd be honest with them about why, but not over the top eg 'we intended to send him to x school, but he doesn't seem happy at nursery there, which surprises us. We think a different school might suit him better.' Ask lots of questions to find a school which matches your own values and philosophy, and especially bilingualism.
4. Once you've got another Reception option, arrange a visit at his school (the school itself, not the nursery) and re-evaluate. Consider keeping him at home until Reception, or going to a different school with the possibility of switching to this one at 8.

But do keep him home in the meantime.

You'll still be paying fees so they shouldn't object. If they ask questions, don't be drawn and just repeat that you've decided that some time at home will be good for him.

The school itself might be fine (different teachers) but the nursery is doing him harm rather than good.

I am a teacher.

The nursery clearly does not suit your DS. I would move him to one that is play based - children should come out of nursery a little dirty and grubby imo. After all children are washable as are their clothes. He really does not need to know all these formal things - he will learn those in his Reception class.

With regards to state school. You could still do a late application for him. It might mean a few stressful months being on waiting lists but you never know - you could end up with a lovely school.

PS - don't put too much emphasis on ofsted reports. Go and see the schools for yourself. Will they suit your DS?

"DH wants DS to do well in life and I think he is worried the nursery might tell any new school our DS is "weird" and that DS would be labelled. "

Different Nursery schools are aware of each other, and are aware of the standard and style of teaching in each one. It sounds as if your DS's nursery will have a reputation which means that a new school will take what they say with a massive pinch of salt.

Besides, any description of a 3yo which criticised them for not tracing their name, going in the mud and fidgeting during a 40 minute assembly would be laughed at by most other nursery teachers.

Tell your DH that any negative report on your DS from his current nursery will label them, not him.

Please please don't send him back after half term. It sounds awful and it is crushing your poor DS. Let him stay at home with the nanny he loves until you can find somewhere much less pressured to try again. He should be painting, going to the park, jumping in puddles and making cakes with playdoh, not being made to sit still, drilled in phonics and write his name, all the time being told he's not good enough. They are going to crush his spirit and destroy his self esteem. If the primary school has the same ethos it is likely to be completely wrong for him too. He will learn loads somewhere he is happy.

Your child is exhibiting signs that he isn't happy at his nursery. Please listen to him.

The teacher is an expert though and I am not. YES, you are! You know your son isn't happy, you need to listen to your instincts!

PS we are not Catholic but the school has an outstanding rating and is very close to where we live That might be why the nursery teacher is pushing the "issues" thing...she doesn't want to lose her "outstanding" (they are anything but) status!

He can count quite well at home but again - of course - not at school You have said this about a few things now, and he CAN do it at school (because you don't lose the ability to do something in a different environment) he doesn't because he is scared of being told off, told that he is wrong, told that he is talking gibberish, told that he isn't normal, or is weird.

This nursery is breaking your son's spirit. If he stays there much longer, he will be a mere shadow of who is was/is.

I am going to go slightly against the majority here, whilst I agree the nursery sounds utterly unsuitable and unkind, I also think there is a lot of drama going on. It sounds incredibly emotional on all sides, but without any decisions being made, and in the meantime the child is at a nursery that he knows his mum and nanny hate. It's just never going to work. I dont want to be harsh but if you think the teacher is unkind etc how is talking to her going to help. It is not as if you have one or two problems with the setting, that a meeting could sort out, you dislike the whole approach (and I am not saying for one minute you are wrong to hold this view) so how is it ever going to move forward. And every day you get another report about the way the nursery relates to your child. It just seems unsustainable to me.