My 4 year old plays alone at Preschool

[puddleducker]

I would love to hear some parents opinion on this!
I just had a meeting with my sons teachers at his Preschool. He's been going there for a year, and is always happy when I drop him off. I am very worried by what they have told me, and am unsure whether it is an issue with the Preschool itself.
They said that he is a loner (their word), and won't play with other children. He has a good friend there who he hugs every morning and sees a lot out of school and I have witnessed him playing well with him, making up games and giggling a lot. They told me that didn't even know they were friends? I have even told them before that they are. Is it a bad thing that he is happy playing alone and not with others?
They also said he finds it hard to sit for the whole of circle time and doesn't follow instructions to help tidy and says no a lot. They also suggested I get his hearing checked as they sometimes ask him four or five times and he doesn't listen. I know that he has no problem with his hearing.
Over all, they just concentrated on negatives, and sped over the fact that he is good at Maths and often takes himself over to the Maths tables and does counting etc.
They also expressed concern that he will be starting reception in September when he is still at this stage.
This Preschool is attached to the primary, and it will be the same teachers who have him then. As we live in a village, my partner and I are considering moving so he can go to a different Preschool and then Primary, but I wanted to get some opinions first, I'm worried that I may be overreacting?
Thank you so much for any opinions in advance
P x

It sounds as though the teachers were quite negative and he won't have a fresh start in September if you stay where you are. Is it an option for him to go to a different preschool in a nearby town? Or even a regular stay & play somewhere else? As social skills have been flagged as an issue I'd also be setting up a lot of play dates.

The nearest preferable on is in a small town half an hour away. We are prepared to move if we need to. My DH is upset by it and is going to go in and talk to them himself (he has supply taught there before).
I think what has effected us the most is that he skips off to school happily most days, and is always happy when we pick him up. Although there were a couple of issues I was aware of, the majority came as a surprise to us as this hasn't been brought to our attention before.
I have already set up a play date tomorrow with his closest friend (who they say they didn't know he was friends with) and I'm going to closely monitor his play from a distance.
I was thinking as an option of putting him in for half a day a week in another Preschool, see how he likes it and what their observations are?

How do you know his hearing is ok?
Have you had it checked professionally?
The pre-school are right to raise their concerns with you, they are not being negative, they are just wanting to support him and make sure he is ready for school.
I am a pre-school teacher and what you describe would raise concerns with me too.
I would be doing as the pre-school are doing and asking you to get his hearing checked.
He has been there for a year which is long enough to have settled in and to be able to sit at circle time and tidy up.

Posted too soon,
children are often different in diffeent situations, so the play date may not give you any clues as to how he is at pre-school.
I doubt you would find any pre-school that would let you just have one afternoon a week.

I worried myself stupid when teacher said similar to me when ds1 was the same age.

Now with hindsight, IMO it's perfectly normal for 4 yos to find sitting still for long periods hard (especially boys, even though we're not allowed to say things like that on here!)

The friendships thing was equally ridiculous. DS knew his own mind. He was perfectly happy to play with anyone who wanted to do what he was doing but if they didn't he was equally happy to do it alone. I can see now that that's preferable to a child who follows "friends" like a sheep.

He's almost 13 now and doing well at school, no complaints at all from teachers about his attention span etc and he has a wide circle of friends but is still happy with his own company and (so far) unlikely to be lead into trouble by peers. Very well adjusted, even if I do say so myself

I think in nursery they have "tick boxes" of milestones/developmental areas and they tell you the ones Dc aren't doing but as I've seen with DS1 that doesn't necessarily matter. Afterall, they're all different.

led into trouble

Quite often there are children who are loners in nursery. The parent will tell you that they are great friends with such and such a child but as a teacher you would never have known this as the children don't even acknowledge each other.
Yes, there are certain stages that children should be getting to and if a child is just sitting and staring into space or looking at a book alone for the majority of the time then this means they are unlikely to reach the stages expected by the end of nursery.
Children are only expected to sit on the carpet for circle times for short periods of time for learning and its quite frustrating when a child/some children refuse to do so as it means everyone else's learning is stopped.

You need to talk to him abut the fact that he must help at tidy up time and that it is important to try and do good listening on the carpet for circle time.

You could try and talk to him about who his friends are and help him think of ways to make friends. Perhaps you could link up with some other parents and go to the park together or whatever.

It isn't a big deal if he isn't with other children a lot if he is busy learning but maybe its the lack of following rules, deciding not to answer, saying no to everything and the way he is reacting to adults and his peers that is the main problem.

IMO Russian has summed up everything that is wrong with early years education.

"Yes, there are certain stages that children should be getting to" Why? To make life easier for the setting, it really doesn't matter to a child that young.

I also think that as EY education is run almost exclusively by women they are really geared towards girls. So yes maybe a "normal" 3/4yo girl will enjoy sitting in circle time, that's often not the case for boys. Same with friendships, girls do form them earlier (and they cause far more problems than boys' friendships tend to)

It almost always comes good in the end and if your child is happy there's not problem IMO. It would be different if he was miserable because he has no friends but it doesn't sound like that's the case.

I would get his hearing checked though, as it's been specifically raised.

I had a boy who sounds similar and as he went into school he did very well as it was more structured.

You have seen him enjoying the company of his friend; take that as your evidence!

I actually cried when the nursery said my son was very quiet and not joining in! (Because they stated it was an issue not just his character iyswim.) With hindsight the nursery was noisy and very "busy" with no structure. He was fine and always happy to go but he got on with his own thing. Now he's still quiet (sometimes) but does speak up in school and has good quality friendships.

I also think that as EY education is run almost exclusively by women they are really geared towards girls. So yes maybe a "normal" 3/4yo girl will enjoy sitting in circle time, that's often not the case for boys. Same with friendships, girls do form them earlier (and they cause far more problems than boys' friendships tend to)
How insulting to us that actually work in early years to be told that we can't differentiate between girls and boys.
It's coz we are fick innit

I heard very similar about my son by his pre school teacher. He is very bright but a little behind socially. His teacher said not to be worried, boys often don't form strong friendships until well into reception class. We bought a book to help him called something like 'How to Make Friends' which we read to him and we try and say phrases to him which we hope he uses at school...'that looks fun, please may I join in?' I also noticed a lot of the boys in his class were into pirates so we played pirates at home and taught him a few phrases and even a pirate joke!

We also realised he isn't sleeping very well due to enlarged tonsils which is then making him grumpy at school. Could there be any other issues?

I think I've noticed an improvement. He talks about school friends more. We have another parent consultation in a couple of weeks so we'll see.

I'm not too worried, they can't be good at everything and I know he's well ahead in other areas.

Why do you take it as personal criticism? If there are things that the nursery have pointed out that may be a cause for concern now surely it's best to at least acknowledge and investigate what they are saying.

Surely helping your child to gain the best experience from early learning is going to be beneficial for proper school and beyond. Learning to sit and concentrate and obey simple instructions is necessary for formal schooling

Ok - so the nursery could have handled this more tactfully then they have. And most of what you have said is quite typical for some boys at that age. But honestly - it sounds as though they have seen several red flags for a developmental disorder such as autism (I have a ds with ASD so I know what they will be looking for).

If it turns out your DS has got a real problem - would you rather that the preschool didn't say anything? Surely the best thing for all is that they raise any concerns with the parents. Not least because getting any help for him takes time (speaks from bitter experience).

I would get his hearing checked out, because that will at least rule that out as a cause for his non-responsiveness. I would go and talk to the staff again, and I would not move him anywhere else at this point.

Ok insancerre, are boys' and girls' targets set differently? I apologise if in fact there is differentiation.

reduction, no need to apologise, I just get fed up of the generalisations about those that work in early years- it's a low paid job so we are all low-ability young girls that couldn't get a better job anywhere else.
In the nursery where I work, and most good nurseries, individual children have individual targets set. Everything is differentiated.
I don't expect all children to be learning the same thing, let alone all the boys or even all the girls.
I have 13 key-children at the moment and they are all at different stages in their learning. Each child has a target for the month, which is met through a mixture of targeted teaching by me and exploratory play by the child.
Most people that work in early years know that boys and girls learn differently, we see it every day, after all.

No, it's the system that's wrong, not the staff IMO.

I get that they all have individual targets, but the milestones that they're "supposed" to reach are the same for everyone aren't they? When OP was told he's not doing this or that, they were talking about where he "should be" in a group of his peers, not his individual targets.

It isn't the nursery that is making up the stages that children should be reaching by certain ages, its the government and their uber clever advisors!

Also think its ridiculous to say that as its mostly females in nursery that means nursery is more suited to girls.

Yep, everyone working in a nursery is doing it because they were too fik to work anywhere else and couldn't think what else to do (they tried hairdressing and beauty therapy but couldn't get the hang of it).