How can we, as parents decide??? After all, early childhood education is what shapes the child’s personality, right??? Translated…
As my two-years’ maternity leave was about to be pu, the personnel office asked me if I wanted an extension for another year? I was still hesitant, but one rainy day, I got the thought of sending my older son to preschool.
My older son is a very energetic baby, if we stayed inside for a day, he couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep. We’d often gone to the nearby parks, elementary schools, even our backyard, for him to dig up the dirt, to pick up the rocks and pebbles, to drain out some of his energies. On one rainy morning, it was a Monday, and, everything was closed down, the libraries, the story house, the exhibits, we’d strolled around in the rain, and in the end, because there was, nowhere LEFT to go, I took my son to the shopping marts, and, after two hours, we got nothing, but a cart full of items. I thought to myself, perhaps, it’s time, I’d trained my son, ready him for preschool now.
I’d collected the information packets, and exchanged my thoughts with my family. My mother-in-law and husband were both supportive of the idea, but my mother had something to say, she’d told me, that her neighbors heard that I was sending my two-year-old into preschool, they’d all said it was, “too early”, that my son was “still too young!”, that it’s not as if my husband couldn’t make enough money to keep us all well, why don’t I extend another year of my maternity leave? That as a parent, I shouldn’t, just, “ship” my son off into preschool! That I’d given birth to him, and was, unwilling to provide him with a happy and carefree childhood, and recently, there was the abuse case at a daycare center on the news, that wasn’t I the least bit worried, that my son being so active will get mistreated like so?
I didn’t know how to react to her, and, I’d asked her, what’s the point, if my baby stayed kept up inside the house? And that on the rainy days, we can only go to the tour factories, and on the weekends, there were, people EVERYWHERE, stuck in traffic, and, if it’s the height of the flu seasons, it would be, even worse, what would be the educational purposes in that? Going out is hard enough, finding that hard-to-find parking space, and, we’d, gotten too strained, and, my son is the way too sensitive type, he’d needed to get bathed, cleaned off, sanitized completely, from his head to his toes, and I’d, needed to, prepare every meal he ate, and if I was strained, where’s the quality of life in that? Besides, the daycare center is different from the kindergartens, it’s not the same.
After I’d stated my case, my mother still felt I was, lacking in compassion, that I’d, neglected my son’s rights. I’d read up on the experts online, to see at what age to start children off on preschools, the medical experts say three, the parents say two, and said, that children only needed half a semester of last year of kindergarten, and then, straight to elementary school. There’s still six months until I start working again, I shall, assess my son’s mental and physical health, if he’d, strongly against going to school, I may be looking at lengthening my maternity leave. I believe, that when to start the children in preschool or kindergarten, is up to the individual child, it’s a multiple choice problem, not a true or false question.
And so, there’s, a lot you have to consider about whether or not your kid is to start preschool or kindergarten at a certain age, and there’s no right or wrong answer to this, it’s all on how ready your child is, and, it surely would be easy, if you don’t get the inputs from your parents, your in-laws, and everybody else who THINK they know the topics better!