Reply to Considering skipping preschool altogether

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "Considering skipping preschool altogether "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]My daughter, an only child, will be turning four in early August. She had been with a nanny (first in a nanny share for one year, then by herself for two years) before our nanny stopped coming in March. Since then she's been home with me and my husband and really thriving.

The plan was always to send her to preschool at 4. Despite not being in school, she's a pretty social kid. She talks a ton to both kids and adults after warming up to them. She's very risk averse and a rule follower. In some ways I wish she was more adventurous, but I attribute this to not being around kids all day every day. As social as she is, she's also kind of attached to us in that she's social if she knows we're closeby. Our nanny had been great with her in terms of teaching her things, but I knew it was time for her to have that school environment with other kids and give her the opportunity to be more independent.

She was very active going places with our nanny before everything shut down. They were at the libraries/storytimes 1-2 times a week, parks/playgrounds, and a learning center-type place that did things like circle time two times a week so she did see the same kids on at least a semi-regular basis. My nanny brought her to everything though - none of these were drop-off. In some ways, when everything shut down I felt thankful that my daughter hadn't been in school because she didn't know what she was missing. I think she loves being home with us.

We're now deciding between bringing our nanny back (she's open to it) or moving ahead with our preschool plans in September. Before this March, preschool was a given and I do believe that she could use some time with kids, but the pandemic has me questioning whether this is really the best time to put her in a whole new environment and whether the benefits of socialization outweigh on the risks. Some other factors are that with aftercare, she'd be there from likely 9-5:30. The thought of dropping her off at a strange place to people she doesn't know after never being in a childcare setting, us not being allowed to go inside, it being all day, and then of course all the risks and considerations that come from COVID are all factors I'm weighing.

I know there are a lot of individual circumstances (risk level, cost, work situations) that can't all be fit here, but in terms of socialization my thinking (or rationalization?) is that though socialization was the thing I was most looking forward to for her, at least she will be in the same boat as many kids when things finally get back to "normal" in terms of not having a ton of social interactions for a long time. And even without a pandemic, I know there are some families that skip preschool altogether for a variety of reasons. My kindergarten teacher friend says she can tell which kids those are at the start of a school year, but that the gap narrows within a few months.

Are there other factors I should weigh?  
 [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics