Three year old won’t write.

[NLW08]

My daughter is 3 and a half and absolutely refuses to write. She hates holding a pen (she seems to be left handed) and flat out will not learn to write her name. Is this bad at her age or should I not worry? I’m not concerned about her intelligence she’s very good at maths and is starting to try and read, her teachers have said she’s very bright. Its just writing she’s adamant is a no go and I’m trying not to get frustrated but other children we know her age are all writing their names.

She's too young and you're only going to put her off by pressuring her. Let her do it in her own time!

Writing at age 3

This the second time I've posted on a thread today about a 3 year old who had teachers - is this something new? As age 3 I'm pretty sure my children played all day, I don't think it did them any harm

Wow, I have a 3 and a half year old and haven't even considered teaching how to write their name. I definitely wouldn't worry about them falling behind.

I think making sure they are ready for school should include things like being able to dress and undress themselves, toilet and wash hands independently, eat with a knife and fork etc not reading and writing.

Early years teacher here OP.

3 is way to young.

My DS is nearly 3 and we never do any pencil work etc

Lay off and remove the pressure

Childhood should be fun

Some kids are writing sentences at 2, some only just write words at 8. Both are ok. What's not ok is hothousing, it's damaging and detrimental.

Will she do it by the time she is 20?

If the answer is yes

Don’t worry about it. That’s my go to rule in life. Ha

She’s 3 though

Seriously. Why does she need to write her name? Is she signing documents yet?

Just leave her be. Let her do colouring if she wants but no pressure to write.

My 2 year old also can't drive a car or cook a roast dinner. Pressuring your child because other parents claim their child can write their name is ridiculous. Your attitude will do her more harm.

Three is just a baby! Please don't pressure her. None of mine started writing their names till they started school (unless you count an assisted attempt at writing on a card or something)
All are now adults and all are fully rounded individuals, capable of not only writing their names, but quite a lot of other things besides. One is now a teacher, another a published writer.
Relax

She isn’t quite hyper mobile but she is overly bendy, she was referred to a physio as a baby and they said she would probably ache more then average children as her joints were looser so that could well be part of it. I hadn’t even thought of that

Thank you everyone for the replies I really appreciate them. I think I needed some outside perspective to tell me that I’m being an idiot and need to take a step back before I really mess things up.
She’s always been advanced with her maths (I’m dreadful at maths, I can barely make it through my times tables and she’s already learnt several of hers without me teaching her) and I think it’s turned me in to a pushy stage mother. I’m also dyslexic and have worried about her being the same (she shows no signs of being dyslexic so I don’t know why i’m worrying about it!) and I think I need to take a chill pill and stop being so neurotic. Thank you again all.

I'm interested to know how she's learned her times tables OP?

She doesn't really need to write yet but there are lots of games to play involving fine motor control if you are worried about her. It didn't occur to me to teach my DC things they would be doing at school .

She three too young. In Switzerland children don’t learn to write until they are 6/7. give her some crayons and paper and just have fun. One thing is circles - you can draw them together and then add silly faces. It’s fun and more interesting than writing

My son is nearly 4 and is only just starting to show an interest in learning to write his name. What's the rush?

@plumpootle

I'm interested to know how she's learned her times tables OP?

She hasn't, she know her mum doesn't know them so makes up random answers

Provide lots of things for her to build her finger and arm muscles. There was a poster who made a great list somewhere. Some I remember are:

play dough, especially making 'peas' rolling them between your fingers, and sausages - rolling long thin sausages
lego - not duplo, picking up and placing small pieces
jigsaw puzzles
sorting small things (smarties into bowls of one colour)
eating raisins
using pegs, especially using them between finger and thumb(get a large tin, paint/colour paper in strips to match your pegs roudn the top of the tin, so the top edge has eg blue, then green then yellow strips. Match the pegs to the strips - peg the yellow peg on the yellow strip)
threading beads onto string
using string to do thread pictures (like 'sewing' onto card)

you get the idea
Helps with fine motor generally, but especially good for hypermobile as it strengthens those weaker muscles.

Plumpootle
I put on “educational” songs from YouTube in the background when it’s a quiet playing day. She’s learnt 2, 5 and 10 times tables so far and weirdly only up to 10x not 12x but i’m not sure why that is. She’s only rolling them off parrot fashion as a song basically, she can break down the two times tables and answer them out of order but not the other two. How much of it she actually understands though I don’t know but she does do multiples of two in her head when we use counting bears so some of it might be in there properly. She seems to pick things up really quickly from hearing songs. She learnt to count to 10 in Spanish and German from songs. If there was song for handwriting we’d be all set!

I’m left handed made no difference to my writing ability.
3 is too young, far too much pressure.

Memorising a song is not maths.

Sounds like a lot of screens.

Hallieknight
She can also add and subtract up to 20, count to 50 and interchange the numbers to ten between the three languages she knows and add and subtract in those three languages, she knows all her shapes including 3D shapes, hexagons, trapezoid etc but it was starting to sound like I was being a bit of a dick boasting. She’s known the three languages counting since she was 2.5. I’ve been told her maths is extremely good for her age group but I was rereading my comment thinking i sounded a bit oh my child’s so wonderful so I was trying to bring it down a notch. But as you’ve pointed it out the memorising the song isn’t maths but the rest of it and id consider the counting of multiples of two in her head to be maths and I feel she’s learnt that from using the song.

Atalune
I don’t let her watch the songs I put them on my phone and have them playing in the background while we do other things. She can’t see the screen. I only allow screen time for half an hour a day or an hour if we’ve had a really busy day.

Yikes, it never even occurred to me that my 3 year old should be writing and doing maths! She can recognise letters, numbers and a few words but that's all.