Preschool - Yea or Nay?

[pensmama87]

We sent DD to a Montessori pre-school, five afternoons a week. I would have preferred three half-day sessions, but that was not available.

When she began first grade in our parish school, she was leagues ahead of the children who had gone through their pre-school program, even though she was the youngest on the class. She had finished their kindergarten curriculum, so the parish school accepted her into first grade even though she missed the age cut-off. As she was an only child, our main concern was socialization, but we loved the Montessori program and the way she grew and blossomed there.

While she was in college, DD worked in the child care center my company had on site and eventually became director of one of their centers. It was an excellent center, and had a very comprehensive program. It was certainly NOT just baby-sitting, although I know that some daycare centers are.

DD also taught in an elementary school, so, as a SAHM, she is more than capable of providing a good pre-school learning experience for her children, but she has chosen to put DGS in the pre-school program in her parish school. It is a stretch for them financially, and because he has several severe food allergies, also very labor-intensive for her. But it’s her professional opinion that the benefit he derives more than outweigh the costs, financial and otherwise.

Thanks, this is helpful.

I am a former teacher too, but my professional experience was grades 7-12, so I don’t have as much of an understanding of development in preschoolers and elementary age children. I had to learn some, but most of what I learned was about adolescents.

Cat brought up a good point about how those education majors liked to party. I didn’t major in education in undergrad, but I remember several people in my grad program and sincerely hoping that none of them would ever, ever, ever have my child in a classroom. Even though it was a good program (as far as rankings go, so…that could be meaningless ) there was a lot of stupid crud, too. But I guess I will encounter that once we get to regular school, too (regardless of what kind of school we went with). Maybe that makes me a snob.

I have conceded that at least for now, homeschooling is not an option for us. I think I’m academically qualified for it, but I think the stress would burn me out super fast.

 

[KendraDZ1902]

I guess I’m the odd mom out.

I’m 57, and my daughters are now 31 and almost 29.

No, we did not do pre-school, and I don’t think it’s necessary.

I took great pleasure in preparing my daughters for kindergarten (required at that time, and still required by most states, I believe) at HOME.

I was determined that I would not send my daughters to school at all until they already knew how to read and do simple arithmetic. Sorry, teachers, but I attended a State University that is known as “teachers college,” and boy, could those elementary ed majors party!

I was not about to take a chance that my daughters would end up in a class with some new age “friend-teacher” who partied their way through college and barely made the grades.

You know who else likes to party? The vast majority of college students. I know police officers who threw down in college, lawyers, people trying to make their way in the political arena, nurses, members of our military, businessmen/women. I didn’t know anyone who was personally pre-med, but I’m sure they party hard too. Oh, sociology majors, psychology majors, you want me to go on? Most of the people that you deal with who have college degrees partied in college. Most CEOs of fortune 500 countries are members of Greek lettered organizations. We all know Greeks in college throw some major parties.
If that was seriously your reason not to allow your child to go to preschool, you should have kept them away from everyone.

 

[pensmama87]

You know who else likes to party? The vast majority of college students. I know police officers who threw down in college, lawyers, people trying to make their way in the political arena, nurses, members of our military, businessmen/women. I didn’t know anyone who was personally pre-med, but I’m sure they party hard too. Oh, sociology majors, psychology majors, you want me to go on? Most of the people that you deal with who have college degrees partied in college. Most CEOs of fortune 500 countries are members of Greek lettered organizations. We all know Greeks in college throw some major parties.
If that was seriously your reason not to allow your child to go to preschool, you should have kept them away from everyone.

That’s true, but preschool teachers tend to be pretty fresh out of college (getting experience on the resume before being hired for a district job), and their job requires constant interaction with children.

A lot of people who train to be teachers quit being teachers within 5 years, too (I forget the percentage, although I do know that I am one of them, too, and that people can change professions for lots of reasons, not all of them having to do with incompetence.)

As I said, I don’t think the people at our parish preschool would be unqualified (far from it), but I’m not convinced that they could do a better job than I could do, and I know that a lot of education programs teach a lot of junk, that takes a while for experience to knock out.

 

[pianistclare]

That’s true, but preschool teachers tend to be pretty fresh out of college (getting experience on the resume before being hired for a district job), and their job requires constant interaction with children.

A lot of people who train to be teachers quit being teachers within 5 years, too (I forget the percentage, although I do know that I am one of them, too, and that people can change professions for lots of reasons, not all of them having to do with incompetence.)
**It’s because of the students and how they behave.
Your kids won’t be a burden. But kids with no social or academic skills are out there, and in college you learn how to work in “sample” situations. Often, it’s not at all like the textbooks tell you. In any subject, accounting, teaching, research. **
I’ve had a friend say that he scored top in his class of accountancy…but he had no clue how to be an accountant until he actually had a job in the field. And it was very different.

As I said, I don’t think the people at our parish preschool would be unqualified (far from it), but I’m not convinced that they could do a better job than I could do, and I know that a lot of education programs teach a lot of junk, that takes a while for experience to knock out.

 

[Xantippe]

I went straight to kindergarten without preschool and I think I was the worse for it, even in those laid-back days where kindergarten was at least 60% snack time, finger painting and play kitchen (and, come to think of it, we at least started with just a half day of kindergarten).

 

[pensmama87]

It’s because of the students and how they behave.

Hah, I can believe that. I had a couple of doozies and I only taught three years.

 

[RC1960]

The angle of decision strikes me as chiefly logistical, and it’s impressive. I would just like to pose 2 considerations-the curriculum and pre-school affects. Given the USCCB’s stance about Common Core teachings and omissions, it might do one well to discover the extent of it’s roll-out and requirements in your school district. The reported concerns over CC instruction are, in some cases, being overlooked because the current administration allows for paying schools to institute it. This is not surprising since the current administration has doubled the national debt in just six years and most famalies and schools are hurting. As the old saying goes “It’s all on tick.” Once a school accepts these monies, the external governing bodies then have internal influence. Some schools are supplementing the CC “standards” as a work-aroun, however, it should be noted that in Jan.-Feb. 2014 there was a law before the Canadian Supreme Court to make such supplemental instruction even in Catholic/private schools illegal. If such moves are made there, then there is a good chance that it will be entertained here in the future. As for the effects of pre-school on children, one may want to consider the information compiled by Home Schooling associations which conflict with a number of governmental/professional body claims. (Blind user so pardon my formating.)

 

[EasterJoy]

I would not have taught them how to interact with so many other types of people. I just wouldn’t have access to them. They would have never ridden a school bus or gone on a “field trip”. They would not have had a Japanese woman come and feed them in my home. There’s a difference between good child rearing and life experience.
I get what you’re saying, but simply being AWAY from mama in a very educational , and safe place is good. It’s only 3 hours. I liken it to training wheels. Less broken bones/feelings.

For the $1300 it costs to have your child in preschool for a year, you can arrange for a lot of experiences for your family that would not be practical in a preschool. That’s a lot of trips to the sushi bar.

I don’t think it is particularly important for a child to get away from their parents before they’re five. It is OK, but it does not put the child behind. Not reading to them or exposing them to language experiences, that can be different, but delayed experience with a school bus is something that you can catch up on. Unless you count the strawberry pickers bus in late grade school, I didn’t ride a school bus until I rode players’ buses in high school. I did not find myself handicapped with regards to navigating mass transit as an adult.

 

[pianistclare]

For the $1300 it costs to have your child in preschool for a year, you can arrange for a lot of experiences for your family that would not be practical in a preschool. That’s a lot of trips to the sushi bar.

I don’t think it is particularly important for a child to get away from their parents before they’re five. It is OK, but it does not put the child behind. Not reading to them or exposing them to language experiences, that can be different, but delayed experience with a school bus is something that you can catch up on. Unless you count the strawberry pickers bus in late grade school, I didn’t ride a school bus until I rode players’ buses in high school. I did not find myself handicapped with regards to navigating mass transit as an adult.

$1300? Are you kidding? It cost us $35 a month for one, and $75 a month for two. While my hubs was unemployed the Methodists told me not to worry about it.

 

[melissa_b]

We originally had planned on not enrolling our sons in preschool but doing some home-instruction with them and then starting them in Kindergarten in the nearby private (now diocesan) Catholic school. When our oldest was 3, we realized he had some delays in processing auditory instructions, and at the recommendation of a developmental pediatrician, started him in the pre-K program at the school when he was 4. This was to give him a head start on following directions given in a group, rather than individually, which wouldn’t have been applicable at home. He’s now in first grade and still struggles some with understanding/following oral instructions, but is making good progress both academically and socially.

Our second son started pre-K at the same school just this past week. He doesn’t have the same difficulties his older brother does, so his starting was more of a choice than a necessity. We’re pleased with the interaction with students of all ages at their school and think it will be beneficial. (The school goes from pre-K to 12th grade, with combined-grade classrooms all the way up, so he’s in a pre-K/Kindergarten combo).

Our oldest did pre-K three mornings a week, and our second is doing three full-days a week due to transportation logistics. It’s about a 45 minute round trip to the school and making pickups at 12:00 and then again at 3:00 would be too much. Our decisions were also faciliated by tuition assistance both from my husband’s employer and from the school itself.

 

[pensmama87]

$1300? Are you kidding? It cost us $35 a month for one, and $75 a month for two. While my hubs was unemployed the Methodists told me not to worry about it.

The 3 day half day program at our parish is $1700 (for non-parishioners, $2000).

 

[PaulinVA]

That’s true, but preschool teachers tend to be pretty fresh out of college (getting experience on the resume before being hired for a district job), and their job requires constant interaction with children.

A lot of people who train to be teachers quit being teachers within 5 years, too (I forget the percentage, although I do know that I am one of them, too, and that people can change professions for lots of reasons, not all of them having to do with incompetence.)

As I said, I don’t think the people at our parish preschool would be unqualified (far from it), but I’m not convinced that they could do a better job than I could do, and I know that a lot of education programs teach a lot of junk, that takes a while for experience to knock out.

I let this thread go on a bit before I jumped in.

My wife teaches at our parish preschool. She is far from fresh out of college. She and her colleagues take what they are doing very seriously, as does the diocese They participate in the teacher in-services days, are required to participate in continuing education, have lesson plans, etc. They are regulated by the state, and have to meet those requirements.

This is me talking, not her, but I think one of the biggest services you get, besides preparing your child for learning in group situations, is an evaluation from a fresh, professional set of eyes. This is the time to identify learning problems, behavior problems, etc, and deal with them before kindergarten. My wife doesn’t talk specifics with me, but I get the impression that some parents need a little nudging to accept the fact that their little kiddo might need some sort of help. Depending on the home situation, there might not be a realization that there is a problem.

I’m just saying. I think that throwing a child into kindergarten, with the ludicrous academic requirements being pushed down that far, without prior experience, could be a problem.

 

[pianistclare]

I let this thread go on a bit before I jumped in.

My wife teaches at our parish preschool. She is far from fresh out of college. She and her colleagues take what they are doing very seriously, as does the diocese They participate in the teacher in-services days, are required to participate in continuing education, have lesson plans, etc. They are regulated by the state, and have to meet those requirements.

This is me talking, not her, but I think one of the biggest services you get, besides preparing your child for learning in group situations, is an evaluation from a fresh, professional set of eyes. This is the time to identify learning problems, behavior problems, etc, and deal with them before kindergarten. My wife doesn’t talk specifics with me, but I get the impression that some parents need a little nudging to accept the fact that their little kiddo might need some sort of help. Depending on the home situation, there might not be a realization that there is a problem.

I’m just saying. I think that throwing a child into kindergarten, with the ludicrous academic requirements being pushed down that far, without prior experience, could be a problem.

Yes.
Also, speech issues can be readily and inexpensively remedied if found before age 7.
As Xantippe noted early in the thread, if it’s cost prohibitive? No amount of pro/com arguments will matter.

 

[Xantippe]

This is me talking, not her, but I think one of the biggest services you get, besides preparing your child for learning in group situations, is an evaluation from a fresh, professional set of eyes. This is the time to identify learning problems, behavior problems, etc, and deal with them before kindergarten.

**Yes! **

My wife doesn’t talk specifics with me, but I get the impression that some parents need a little nudging to accept the fact that their little kiddo might need some sort of help. Depending on the home situation, there might not be a realization that there is a problem.

Yes, there can be a lot of denial about learning disabilities.

Also, if it’s a first child, the parent won’t have anything to compare the kid with.

 

[Allegra]

I’ve been a teacher for 10 years and I have to say, I’m not really impressed with preschool. I don’t think they’re bad, but I think a child could learn more in a less structured environment. The school where I work has a preschool and about half of our incoming kindergarteners have attended preschool. They are usually better prepared for the social aspect of school (raising hands, walking in a line, waiting turns, etc) but by the end of the year, the other kids have been trained and you can’t even tell the difference. I don’t think that there is strong evidence that it helps kids in the long run, except maybe in the cases of students who need early intervention for a disability.

 

[schaeffer]

I’ve been through this with my children, children I taught, and now my grandson.

My kids did preschool. Two with Head Start, the third with a home preschool and then a Church preschool.

My kids all enjoyed it. I mostly taught homeschoolers who got together to take their kids to special classes etc. The kids enjoyed it.

My grandson didn’t go to preschool. He started kindergarten this year and the first nine weeks were rocky. Kindergarten these days is what preschool was for my kids 25 yrs ago. The teacher was constantly sending notices that my grandson is behind, doesn’t know how to sit quietly in class, will start conversations with other students, couldn’t write his first and last name on the first day of school or count to one hundred on his own.

And admittantly, my children did learn those things in pre school.

I think, especially if the child is a first child or for other reasons is not around other children very often, pre school is a definitely a benefit. And even though she was with her older brothers, my daughter very much enjoyed and benefited from preschool.

A few mornings a week is a real enjoyment for them, and great preparation for kindergarten…if it’s a good program.

When I was a child, my mother didn’t “believe” in kindergarten. I was the last of six children so mine was not an issue of socialization, but entering first grade at five, with no previous school experience was very difficult from me. I didn’t know how to do many of the things my peers did, I was very confused and “failing” at things that others clearly knew how to do was traumatic in my “stress on excellence” household.

Even without pre school, the children do catch up over time. But even to this day I think my mother did me a great disservice by not allowing me to go to kindergarten, I think that it affected my feelings toward school to start out as a failure and behind all the children in my class.

 

[jlc2k2]

No preschool here but it’s a logistics/financial issue. With the ages of our kids and the fact that the sitter comes to our house, daycare costs would not go down if we put our oldest in preschool. There’s no way we could afford preschool on top of what we already pay and we don’t qualify for tuition assistance.

So we are working on the academic piece and I am doing my best with the socialization piece given how hectic our days are.

I can let you know if I regret it in about 9 months.

 

[UbiCaritas]

I’ve been through this with my children, children I taught, and now my grandson.

My kids did preschool. Two with Head Start, the third with a home preschool and then a Church preschool.

My kids all enjoyed it. I mostly taught homeschoolers who got together to take their kids to special classes etc. The kids enjoyed it.

My grandson didn’t go to preschool. He started kindergarten this year and the first nine weeks were rocky. Kindergarten these days is what preschool was for my kids 25 yrs ago. The teacher was constantly sending notices that my grandson is behind, doesn’t know how to sit quietly in class, will start conversations with other students, couldn’t write his first and last name on the first day of school or count to one hundred on his own.

And admittantly, my children did learn those things in pre school.

I think, especially if the child is a first child or for other reasons is not around other children very often, pre school is a definitely a benefit. And even though she was with her older brothers, my daughter very much enjoyed and benefited from preschool.

A few mornings a week is a real enjoyment for them, and great preparation for kindergarten…if it’s a good program.

When I was a child, my mother didn’t “believe” in kindergarten. I was the last of six children so mine was not an issue of socialization, but entering first grade at five, with no previous school experience was very difficult from me. I didn’t know how to do many of the things my peers did, I was very confused and “failing” at things that others clearly knew how to do was traumatic in my “stress on excellence” household.

Even without pre school, the children do catch up over time. But even to this day I think my mother did me a great disservice by not allowing me to go to kindergarten, I think that it affected my feelings toward school to start out as a failure and behind all the children in my class.

I went to kindergarten without having gone to preschool. I was ahead in certain areas–I could read fluently, for example–but quite behind in others, and continued that way through first grade, after which I was pulled out to homeschool.

I still remember my first spelling test. No one had explained to me what the word “test” meant, and one of the teachers had always emphasized that we were to help each other as much as possible in class. As a result, when a word was given to us to spell that I didn’t know, I leaned over and asked a classmate. I got in SO much trouble for “cheating”–and I didn’t even understand what the word meant, much less why it was wrong!

I also didn’t understand things like having to raise my hand to ask permission to speak/use the bathroom/etc, or that when the class was doing X during, say, gym class, I needed to be doing X with them, too, rather than Y off by myself. I finally got to the point that I wouldn’t do very much in school because I was so afraid of doing something wrong or making a mistake. Ugh.

 

[pianistclare]

As a mother to many I can assure you that you would have probably labeled one or more of my children as one “raised by wolves” and a few more of them would have been one of your star pupils! I guess what I am trying to share is that preschool probably would have had little impact on my children, the mature ones were mature early and the immature ones were still immature by kindergarten.

Having multiple children has made me humble if nothing else. As much as I have tried to instill good manners, raise them in the faith, and dole out discipline they have embarrassed me. On the flip side they also made me proud when I least expected it. I don’t think preschool is the answer to helping a young child more mature, I don’t think you can take a 3,4 or 5 year old and help them mature beyond when they are ready but that’s just my opinion.

Historically speaking school (as we know it here in the United States) is a relatively new concept anyway. Children virtually rounded up and whisked off to spend the day away is not how it was, not for centuries. Children lived in the home, close to family and were educated in or near the home with mom/aunts/relatives. Boys went to work with dad or off on a farm as a teen later on, but going off to preschool is a new thing.

There isn’t anything wrong with preschool per-se, I am just bringing up history because I don’t think that young children are “hard wired” for it, again, just my two cents.

Well I hear you, we had lots of big families and you can’t judge one sibling by the others. that is so true. But I will stick by my original thinking. As a musician, I have taught loads of kids piano lessons. Some were musically inclined. Some really were not, but ALL of the learned the rudiments of playing, and all them came to appreciate music lessons. It helps them with memorization skills and concentration. Likewise, I don’t believe that PreSchool makes your kids a National Honor Society student. but it sure does open them to the possibility of thriving since they don’t have to work nearly as hard to keep up with other kids. A lot of learning is about being receptive. The routine of preschool really helps the shy kids. And it’s only 3 hours a day! The same amount of time as mommy’s morning out, or play dates. We’re not packing them for college. Yet.

 

[aloe]

My mom is 50, and shared your approach. I think it worked for us, absolutely.
.

My own mom is in her young 50’s and also shared this approach and it worked for all of her kids, all college graduates. 3 of us also have graduate degrees. We went lots of places and I treasure that time spent with my mom. She loved it too. My husband and I are doing the same. It is SUCH a blessing and it is working great for our entire family.