Nursery

[Scout19075]

I'm more than a bit curious and guess I need a bit of support.

Am I the only one to not send my toddler, who we're planning on educating at home, to nursery? ToddlerScout is now 2.3 and definitely at the age where all of the mums at groups, the health visitors, the children's center workers, etc, are talking about nursery and asking "if TS is in nursery" or making assumptions that he will be in the next few months. With friends or other mums at groups I'm able to stear the conversation away from our plans but have found it's more difficult with county/government workers.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can handle the situation without going into the full blown home education speech? I would like to avoid the conversation with the health visitors/children's center workers as much as possible (only because of some things that have gone on with the LEA the last few months/year and I live in an area where I don't think HE would be understood/looked upon favorably). I'm also about to undergo round two of a not very nice medical treatment and just don't have the energy to "fight" my HE corner before I really need to.

Thanks!

You could just smile and say that you have decided against nursery for the moment. You don't have to say anything about HE until TS is rising 5. If anyone says "but he needs nursery to be ready for school" you could then say that not everyone agrees with that and you are working at home to make TS more independent (you don't have to say "for HE").

I have a son 4 and have had that for 2years now I just say flatly no he's not going and if pressed I'm home educating and refuse to say more. You don't have to justify yourself to anyone. I ok longer allow myself to be drawn into discussions with strangers like u I dang defend myself all the time

even if you're not planning to home educate they don't have to go to nursery. Just say you are enjoying the time together.

Thanks. I do smile and say things like "TS and I are having a great time at home together" (and variations of). I know children aren't required to be educationed "formally" until they're five but a lot of people here/around me don't seem to understand that. I guess I'm just disheartened because at TS's 2 year check last week the health visitor assumed (actually said) that I must miss work and would rather be there than at home full time. I'm sure a lot of people do but I'm not one of them.

It sounds awful, poor you.
Have you read siblings without rivalry? It gave me a lot of insight into how my 2 interact, and strategies to help them at least try and get along.

Oops, wrong thread, sorry!!

Gah! The typos! Sorry about that -- trying to do too many things at once.

Do you take him to playgroups and other things like that, or have a group of friends with children of similar age? If so you can always just say "No we have a great time at x and y and we're happy with that for now". They are either just making standard conversation, because "nursery" is the topic they usually chat about with parents of his age group, or else they are ticking boxes about him getting the chance to play with other children, now he's of an age to maybe have some interest in that and be able to learn useful things about taking turns and sharing etc.

What are you getting out of seeing the Health Visitor?
If you are getting more hassle or misunderstanding of your lifestyle than support, why see her again?

Oh yes, we have daily activities -- well, almost daily. Wednesdays we usually have to turn down something since we have too many things and Thursdays we have nothing so we do errands, be potatoes at home with paint, go to soft play on our own and run around, etc. We haven't done proper "play dates" yet (unless meeting up at the playground to feed the ducks count?) but regularly see the same faces at various groups/activities. Also have a lovely HE group we see almost weekly, some weeks more often, with a range of children (from six months younger than TS upwards to 10 years old).

At TS's one-year check I was practically told I took TS to too many CC activities and this year it's "do you take him to any?" I can't win with the hvs.

From what I gather I won't see the HV again unless I have concerns and contact them. For the two year check really I just wanted him weighed and measured and didn't want to take up a precious doctor's appointment for that. (And that's more for clothing since US sizes are different than UK AND my mom sews and is making him things so a more accurate measurement is helpful.) I have no other concerns/issues TS walks, talks (his vocabularly is exploding it's great to watch/listen to), eats, sleeps, plays, etc. He's two. He does what two year olds do.

We are in a similar situation, DD1 is 3.3yo and we are planning to HE. She does not go to nursery, for this and many other reasons (the main one being that she would hate it!). We've had people asking us for about a year now whether we are going to send her to nursery- not the same people over and over again, I think it's just a standard question for the parents of 3 year olds

Our HV was quite open minded about HE so that is one less thing for us to worry about, but I have had a few people telling us that she is missing out and that she won't be ready for school etc etc. My standard answer is that we are planning to HE because we think it will suit our family best. I find that if you don't give any reasons then it doesn't offer the subject up for debate. If they do delve further then you can just reiterate that you've thought about it a lot and you are happy that it's the right decision for your family.

We also go to a small HE group which DD1 loves, and a couple of other groups. She also has a couple of friends that she plays with once or twice a week. She's not missing out at all!

Siblings Without Rivalry is a great book, I agree it's a good read for understanding child interaction.

Many people believe children must go to nursery, its sad but true.
i just said, "she's only 3" ect "she doesn't HAVE to go", lots of people were really surprised to find this out and said they wished they had known.
But yes it is just the stranded conversation.

Stick with your gut instinct. I sent my 3 girls to preschool at 2.5yrs old and looking back (I now HE 2 of them who are nearly 7) I really wonder why I sent them and what they gained from it. I was told they should go to learn how to socialise...get them ready for school etc etc. DD1 didn't speak the whole 2yrs she went there :( If only I'd heard about HE then.

I'm still getting used to responding to the questions about why my girls are out and about with me during school hours and ignoring the looks but mostly I just say "Oh, they're home educated.", smile sweetly and don't say another word!

Good luck and enjoy! :)

My dd goes to nursery 9 - 3 on two days a week (I'm a SAHM with no other family nearby) which she started just after her 3rd birthday. I didn't see any reason to send her any sooner than that because it would have just been about childcare and I would probably stop her going if she didn't like it (I get a cheery wave and that's it).

At least part of the reason she goes is that I wanted her to have some time without me and to learn to listen to other adults because I felt she was "tuning me out" some of the time. Also, when she turned 3, she started doing a couple of classes without me (tumble tots and ballet - but could have been anything really). It's about independence for her, I think. I'm still her "main teacher" although I don't plan to HE but I think she'll learn things better from other people in some cases.

I think it has made a difference to her. Mind you, she's a totally different person to the one she was at 2.3 where if someone asked her a question she'd answer with "this is my mummy" and point to me. Now you can't shut her up! We're still very attached to each other (obviously).

As another poster has said, my guess is that people are just making conversation and, tbh, to ask the mother of a kid aged around 2-3 if they are in nursery is usually a pretty safe way of having an uncontroversial chat.

I have found, 9/10, that older people in particular are actually very supportive of keeping little kids out of nursery.

If I am not sure if someone is asking critically or not, I tend to go for the "its working well for now," approach. I think it can come across as fairly arrogant to assume that you will not ever send a child to school, or to imply that schools are not good enough for your child or possibly any child when you are speaking to someone whose kids are in a school. So I think it works better to stress why YOU have chosen to HE. For me, a big thing was that my oldest is dyslexic and the local schools didn't even pretend that they could deal with this (I had enough experience to know I could), then, because we applied late (for bona fide reasons) my younger two didn't even get a place in any of the many schools within any reasonable walking distance (like 2 miles), so although tbh I'd have HE'd anyway it is quite useful to have reasons specific to my kids, and which don't mark me out TOO obviously as a precious parent (well, a bit they do but hey) to homeschool . Puts people on the defensive a little less.

Don' t mention HS, just say, no I don't believe in nursery.

Can someone explain the difference/s between nursery, day nursery and playgroups to me?

Previously mentioned friend (who is 65, btw, so it's not normal mum-of-toddler chat at toddler groups) who's pushing about nursery said something about one of TS's friends going to "day nursery" because her parents work. In reality the little friend is going to a child minder but I wondered why my friend has been pushing for TS to go to nursery and then saying his friend was at day nursery.

She brought it up to me again this week, very out of the blue. She started the conversation asking me what nursery had we chosen for TS because we need to make sure we got his name down early to ensure there's a space for him when it's time. We were happily doing her craft at the toddler group (she voluteers there, we attend as mum & tot) and she just asked me. I just smiled and said "oh, I'm not worried about him needing a space yet...oh, Toddler, that's wonderful glueing & sticking you're doing...."

Day nursery usually means a type of nursery which is open longer hours to provide childcare for working parents. There can also be nursery (or "preschool") sessions which are intended mainly for the child's benefit. (I'm not getting into the question of whether they are actually beneficial or necessary.)

I think that parents who are sending their children to nursery for reasons of child development and making friends, rather than for childcare, more often choose stand-alone sessions somewhere that specialises in doing that, but they could equally well use the government funding to send their children to a day nursery for part of each day. I suppose an advantage to a preschool-type setting compared to a day nursery would be that all the children are there more or less for the same hours so the child won't be arriving or leaving halfway through some activity. But the more flexible hours of a day nursery might suit some families who don't want to be tied to the hours of 9:15-12:15 but might like, say, 8-11.

...You could ask your friend about her own experience of going to nursery as a child (if she's 65, I'll bet she didn't) and then ask whether she feels that staying home with her mum has hindered her own social and academic skills or prevented her from making friends. I used to tell elderly acquaintances "I'm afraid I'm terribly old-fashioned, but when I was little, most kids didn't go to preschool and we turned out OK. I don't think the nature of children has changed, do you? I see this idea of universal preschool is a bit of a fad." That gives people pause for thought and some elderly people will actually agree with you if you put it that way.

(When I am feeling really provocative I will even refer to widespread schooling as a radical newfangled fad the benefit of which has not been proven. The expectation that most children would go to school has only been around for a little more than a century, after all. I don't expect anyone to agree with me about that, however! Unfortunately there are very few living adults who didn't go to school, so the argument that "giving it a miss didn't do you and me any harm" can't be used for school as it can for preschool.)