Pre-school and Stressed out Kids
I’ve been worried for a while about my daughter. Many of her friends are in pre-school, and I often wonder, is she missing out on some of the great things pre-school has to teach her? I’ve recently realized that this attitude is merely falling into a trap that is currently afflicting society. We are beginning to think that pre-school represents indispensable preparation for our children. Poppycock!
I can see that pre-school might be important for those families where both parents have to work, but we know so many people sending off their children to all-day pre-schools for $400/month, even those families where the mother stays home–though these are admittedly few. It seems sometimes like the only ones who don’t send their kids to pre-school are the ones that home school. I don’t know what the pre-schools are like, but I’ve had reports of nightly homework. I’m sure it’s for a good intent, but it seems excessive to me.
It turns out (I talked with my friends from the Ed. department) research has shown that differences in preparation from pre-school education (as I understand the research that was presented to me) going into kindergarten, disappear by third grade. That hardly seems worth it, being ahead for a few years in exchange for sending my child early into a competitive environment where getting skills quicker than other kids seems to be increasingly the goal.
Jr. kindergarten seems to me to be the same sort of thing. My kid just missed getting into kindergarten next year, so we could send her to Jr. kindergarten, from which she either goes on the next year to regular kindergarten or, if she tests well, straight into first grade. If she goes on to first grade, then she’ll be developmentally at the bottom of the grade, and her preparation might put her firmly in the middle, where she will probably stay for the rest of her school career. If she waits for regular kindergarten, she’ll be one of the older kids in the grade and will sit developmentally nearer the top, or at least have a better chance of doing so, which comes with the benefits of being seen as fit for gifted programs with their alternative pedagogies and resources. (Again, I’m citing a bunch of random folks from the Ed department in a lot of this.)
The drawback, of course, is that she will be one year further into her life when she hits college. My question, though, is why that isn’t a benefit. Kids get this thin slice of time to be kids–to do what they want to at their own pace–to just feel safe and be nurtured in the home without the stress of competition. Why do we want to shorten that time? I’d like to make it as long as I can. Why do we value sending our kids off early to the tune of $400? Or even $200? (I could send my kids off half-day)
We of all people would, I think, value the time for our children are in the home, learning what it means to be part of a family before they learn what the family is to be a haven from. I’m not worried about my daughter any more. I’m worried about a bunch of stressed out kids that are afraid to get a B because they get that kind of pressure from the time they get potty training, the one indispensible requirement in attending pre-school, and one I’m willing to admit is indispensible.
Nightly homework? For pre-school? Good grief, I’ve never heard of such a thing.
My kids have really enjoyed pre-school. My daughter went to a very relaxed pre-school as a 3 year old, for two hours twice a week and loved it. She went to a more educationally oriented pre-school as a 4 year old for two hours three times a week and loved, loved, loved it. She got a lot out of it – socially and educationally.
My other daughter (just turned 4) is currently in pre-school and last week they went to a fire station, did a lot of fingerpainting, and talked about the letter R. If a child is stressed out by pre-school, you’ve got them in the wrong pre-school. It’s pre-school. It’s supposed to be fun and hopefully teach them a bit about letter sounds and reading readiness.
But I agree that it isn’t mandatory. It isn’t an essential. It’s not going to harm your kid either. Kids can still be kids and go to pre-school, you aren’t sucking the fun out of life if you send them. It shouldn’t be a big deal.
The biggest differences that my mother (a kindergarten teacher) sees between the children who attended pre-school and those who did not are:
1) The children who attended pre-school are usually further along the reading path
2) They understand how to behave in a classroom environment and are generally better able to get along with their peers better in that environment, and
3) They aren’t as upset or afraid during the first few weeks of kindergarten. They’ve had experience with mom dropping them off and being there to pick them up a couple of hours later after school, and aren’t terrified by the idea.
I will say, as a child who was skipped up through school who paid a high price emotionally/socially once I hit high school (was not mature enough to handle it), I’m firmly in the camp of not testing kids through to first grade or skipping grades. Your kid might be the lucky kid who sails through it, but why take the risk of putting them with kids who are a year older emotionally, physically, socially. High school is rough enough, and a year makes a big difference in the kinds of judgements your kid is prepared to make.
Comment by Sue — 1/22/2007 @ 11:31 am
I think pre-school can be very positive for some kids, while other kids don’t need it. We read like crazy with our kids and do a lot of math projects, so there is no real deficiency there. We chose to send them to preschool (couple of times a week for a couple hours), so that they could get some time in that social environment (plus it has a swim lesson included, which is cool).
Comment by J. Stapley — 1/22/2007 @ 12:00 pm
We chose to send our kids to low-key, part-day preschools for our kids not because they “needed” it for any academic reason, but because living in neighborhoods with few or no kids at home and available for playing during the day. We could have matched any of the reading-prep stuff and home (and probably duplicated essentially all of it anyway). It was a great way for our kids to make friends outside of the handful of kids their ages at church.
Comment by JrL — 1/22/2007 @ 12:16 pm
We do a pre-school group with kids from church, where we take turns at peoples houses with the basic lesson.
I think preschool is a break for the parents as much as anything else.
Comment by Matt W. — 1/22/2007 @ 12:21 pm
The kinds of preschools you are talking about aren’t widespread. The preschools around here are 3 days/week for 2.5 hours and do NOT teach reading.
The benefit is getting used to structure, getting used to being away from mom, learning how to interact with other children, and having some fun, and learning activities.
If it means that they watch a little less TV during the day then that is a huge benefit.
If however preschool isn’t affordable for a family, I don’t think it is a big loss.
As for age….I have two OCtober birthday children. They are now the “oldest” in their classes.
Disadvantages:
-They are 99+ percentile in height anyway, so they totally tower over their peers.
-Risk of reaching puberty way before their friends. It definitely a negative to need a bra before your friends do.
-If they are naturally smart, school is too easy and they don’t learn how to work.
-You have an 18 year old who is totally ready to move on, but living at home and going to high school. Would you want to enforce rules for a 6’5″ 240 lb. male football player who is an adult? An actual adult? Can you imagine being grounded by your parents once you had gone to college? Delaying them being adults isn’t doing them a huge favor.
Advantages:
-If they are below average in an area, this helps them. Socially, for instance, it helps my kids.
-Emotionally it helps to be older when you are dealing with tough situations at school.
-Lots of early success at school. They don’t ever have to be the worst at something in their first few years.
However, since the choice is either be the youngest or be the oldest (its not like you can choose for them to be average age) I think it is best to go with the school districts cut off date is. I don’t think it is worth trying to change it. In actuality there are PLENTY of children who have birthdays near your child’s. For instance in my son’s 1st grade class, by the end of November 5 out of 6 of the boys had turned 7 like him. In my daughter’s class, it seems there were plenty of birthdays in the first couple of months of school (including someone with her exact birthday). They aren’t really so “different” and “older.”
Comment by JKS — 1/22/2007 @ 1:18 pm
Matt W.,
We actually do something a lot like this. My wife and some other moms in the area have a “mothers’ preschool” a couple of times a week. They take turns and they’re learning letters and numbers. We are, incidentally, losing one of the kids next year (the 4-year-old year) to a full-time preschool. It will be a little more involved next year, as I understand their plans, but still very calm.
I really hope not. Maybe it’s jsut our friends. We do live in a really small town with a university that is very prominent in the community.
We actually thought about formal pre-school until we saw how amazingly invovled and expensive it was. We thought, hey, it would be good for her to spend more time with other kids in bigger groups. We just didn’t find anything that was reasonable for a pre-K child. We are frankly concerned that kindergarten in our area is full day. Where I grew up, it was always half-day, and that seems reasonable to me.
J,
How cool is it to get the extra add-on of the swim lesson. We pay separately for that one. Also, to get some of extra time with other kids (and just because Maren was so exited about it) we signed her up for hula.
Comment by Steve H — 1/22/2007 @ 2:26 pm
A humorous (or scary) anecdote:
A physician I was on call with the other night who moved to the midwest from Boston cited the preschool system there as one of many reasons she left. It seems that most of the preschools in her neighborhood had entry criteria like an ivy league school. There was an application and interview process, and if you made it through all that (and very few did) tuition was in the tens of thousands of dollars per year. Of course they insisted that their grads were on the fast track for Harvard, but hmm…
Comment by Chris S. — 1/22/2007 @ 3:02 pm
I’m assuming that’s the parents, not the kids. A preschool that requires a Yale degree to get in sounds a bit superfluous.:)
Seriously, though, I’m surprized it’s legal to require parents to have attended certain institutions. I hope someone does some research on how much their program really helps and shuts them down for false advertising or shames them into more scrupulous practices with data on how badly such craziness affects kids.
Comment by Steve H — 1/22/2007 @ 3:40 pm
Steve, to be honest, I think your concerns about preschool are probably not justified. No good preschool would send home “homework” or even stress academics in their curriculum. I think full time daycare, which is an entirely different thing, can be stressful for children that age, but not a 3-hour preschool, assuming it is run by qualified teachers who implement best practices. I don’t know where you live, but requiring ivy-league parents just sounds bizarre and that type of thing must only apply to a tiny percentage of preschools.
Comment by E — 1/22/2007 @ 10:56 pm
Of course, my one kid who only got one semester preschool (3-day a week play enrichment) is the one who may have ADD/dyslexia/other learning disabilities. I kept him home so we could spend more time together, since he had spent his young life tagging along, unlike the older kids whose young lives I had filled with activities aimed specifically for them.
I’m told I made life much harder for him, since I didn’t push against his disinterest in pencils and scissors. Now I feel like I was selfish destructive Mom, since we spent six months watching large construction equipment, visiting the nearby small zoo, and me reading books to him, and generally savoring the whole “last baby” time, though my husband and I went on to have more kids after all. All good for me, but apparently not in my child’s best interest. Who knew?
Comment by Johnna Cornett — 1/23/2007 @ 5:20 am
Granted, this is anecdotal, but:
My Mother in Law was a special education teacher, and when we discussed pre-school with her she shared her experience.
In her experience, children who were quickly transfered from a home with a parent at home to a preschool or those who, of necessity, went to pre-school because there was no parent at home may have been more advanced initially, but were less able to cope emotionally.
I guess what I am trying to say is that children who were firmly grounded in a home with two loving parents, one of whom stayed at home with the children until they went to school, were better equipped emotionally to handle what came later.
I believe that there are certainly benefits to pre-school. My children had a difficult time adjusting to an environment without their mother and to this day I think we sheltered our children too much. But they had no problems academically due to not attending a pre-school.
Comment by Craig S. — 1/23/2007 @ 1:28 pm
Johnna,
I wouldn’t kick myself too hard, if I were you. There are a lot of factors contributing to ADD and other learning disabilities. I don’t know the research, but I have my personal doubts that pushing pencils and scissors with the hard sell would have been the answer. Remember, I’m not an educational researcher, but for what my two cents’ worth is worth.
At the same time, kids with such disabilitites aren’t doomed to low achievement. I think the sort of support it sounds like your child can expect, given your obvious concern, is the best way to overcome such difficulties, though it is never easy, I’m sure.
Craig,
I couldn’t agree more. It seems like kids benefit from the sort of confidence and sense of safety a home environment with a constant care-giver provides before they give over to the pressures of a very competitive world. Pre-school, if done, would best be an interesting insertion into that life, rather than a replacement. Not always possible, but still ideal, I think.
Comment by Steve H — 1/23/2007 @ 3:41 pm
I am soooo glad that my boys missed the deadline for kindergarten. They are now in first grade but I was able to spend an extra year with them, at home, away from other worldly influences. (The boys are now in first grade and the other day they came home swearing). On top of this, my boys are reading at almost a 3rd grade level. Granted this came from us reading with them at home, but my point is the lack of preschool and waiting for kindergarten didn’t hurt them.
As for the ADD issues (granted I didn’t fully read all of the comments). One of my boys had been ‘threatened’ with this diagnosis by teachers and doctors (while in kindergarten). He is active and must work to control himself but I refused to put him on medicine (I personally believe that while the body and mind are growing, meds should not be introduced if possible). I know it sounds odd, but we changed our diet to remove artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, etc. and increased his Omega 3s (Cod liver oil) and since then (though he is still active) he is a much calmer boy again. (and as a side benefit, my wife and I have lost a lot of poundage with this simple diet change in our lives.)
Comment by Alexander — 1/25/2007 @ 12:27 pm
I’ve heard about changes to diet helping kids with symptoms that get called ADD. But, I live in the land of Alice Waters: the only prepackaged food I’m buying is bread–there have been no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners in this child’s life. Which is a pity since the only way I’m going to lose poundage is to eat half as much.
The NYT ran a piece the success of behavior mod instead of/with meds for ADD last month. Although my child is doing so much better than he was in September, I don’t know if he’ll be able to catch up. So I’m looking for someone local who will support me in implementing some kind of behavior mod parenting. Since all my earnestness seems to inadequate.
Comment by Johnna Cornett — 1/29/2007 @ 7:04 pm
I know this isn’t supposed to be a thread about ADD/ADHD, but since it has gone that direction…
ADD/ADHD is one of those unfortunate diagnoses that gets a lot of media attention, and because it manifests as a behavioral problem, its diagnosis and treatment have spawned many a controversial discussion. What many people fail to recognize is what the last “D” stands for. That “D” is for “disorder.” Many a child (or adult) has hyperactive or attention deficit tendancies. I’m convinced half of any Elders’ quarum does on any given Sunday (opposed to our High Priests’ group, which suffers from collective narcolepsy). It becomes a disorder when the subject in question can no longer succeed in school or society because of the manifestations. Now, what defines success is a topic for another day, but there most definately are children who have the Disorder and will benefit from medical therapy. Behavior modification and maybe (though I doubt it) diet changes can help these kids, but children with true significant ADD/ADHD have pathophysiologic issues that require pharmaceutical intervention. Preschool attendance may influence early childhood behaviors for good or ill, but for children with real ADD/ADHD, it is a non-factor.
Comment by Chris S. — 1/31/2007 @ 1:10 pm
Chris,
While I would certainly not say that kids with ADHD shouldn’t ever be medicated, and I don’t think that pre-school is a factor, I would hesitate to say that we know which came first, the behavioral pattern or the chemical imbalance that accompanies it. No one has actually shown that there are certain kids that have certain brain chemistry from birth that will then manifest itself as ADHD. I’m a big believer that our actions and our environment can affect our brain chemistry.
Comment by Steve H — 1/31/2007 @ 2:56 pm
I don’t question that environment plays a role in the development of ADHD. The issue is the extent of involvement. Most evidence suggests that unique environmental factors can contribute to the manifestation of the disorder, but the underlying pathology appears to be dominantly genetic in nature. See: Am J Psychiatry. 2005 Sep;162(9):1614-20.
Comment by Chris S. — 1/31/2007 @ 7:28 pm
in the experiences of our friends, sure, two or three half-days a week are offered for preschool, but the classes are usually cancelled. most parents are looking for full-time (likely because they work full-time) and the part-time classes get canned for lack of interest.
we do the co-op preschool thing and use the eyres’ “joy school” lessons. simple, fun, teaches values instead of academics, and provides the socializing for the kids and a brief respite for mom. our kids have really enjoyed it.
Comment by makakona — 2/1/2007 @ 3:58 am
The state I live in has free preschool for all 4 year olds. I wouldn’t be opposed to sending my boy to preschool, but they expect you to go for 2 1/2 hours five days a week. That just didn’t seem right to me. I am the only mother I know that doesn’t have my child in preschool. All the other mothers insist that the program is wonderful, but I am skeptical that it really makes that much of a difference in the long run. The public school system has my child for 13 years and they want to have them for another one? I really believe that you can do great harm to a child by forcing them to learn things they are not prepared to learn.
Comment by rk — 6/7/2007 @ 12:20 pm