Should 3-year-olds go to school?
How important is pre-school anyway?
What if your child isn’t ready to be around other children?
Should you send your 3-year-old to school anyway?
A mom in France contacted me recently about her preschool dilemma:
I hope you don’t mind my writing to you, but I recently read your article in the Ashland Daily Tidings, “Should 3-Year-Olds Go to School?”
It was 4 a.m. Unable to sleep, I was searching the internet for help. ‘Should I / Shouldn’t I?’ send my 2 year and 10 month old son to pre-school (or maternelle here in France). He’s not three yet. And I’m just not sure, should 3-year-olds go to school?
I felt relief as I read through your article, it was like reading through the events that had just occurred to myself.
Two days before I had just picked my son up from his first 3 hours at maternelle, he had cried for half that time.
How did things work out with your son in the end?
What age did he eventually go to school/creche/pre-school?
Was he content to go when he was older and ready to explore without Mum in sight?
I could delay my son’s entry for another 1.5 months or until the following year.
I’m currently thinking of delaying his entry to pre-school for another year when he’ll be 3 years and 10 months, but would really like to hear your thoughts.
Now that my son is almost 6, I have so much more insight about this dilemma and it seems obvious to me that this reader’s son is not ready to be in school.
Here’s how I responded:
We took our son out of school for the year and my husband and I completely re-arranged our schedules to be home with him.
We also had some babysitting help when we needed it.
IT WAS ABSOLUTELY THE RIGHT DECISION!
He wasn’t ready to be in school, very simply put.
When he did finally go to school the following year (a preschool that met 4 days a week from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.) he went off SO HAPPY and totally engaged.
He didn’t once cry or say he didn’t want to go.
He enjoyed school and the other children very much.
At that point he was 4-years-old (or almost 4 when he started because his birthday is in October).
I’m pretty familiar with the French system.
Though of course it varies from teacher to teacher, I think, if you can, that your son will be much happier and better adjusted if he can stay home with you.
So, yes, yes, I think you can do no wrong in delaying your son’s pre-school entry.
The all-important socialization (I’m writing this rather sarcastically as I think “socialization” is usually touted by working parents who are feeling guilty and the best socialization often happens at home) can wait.
I’m really glad you wrote to me.
These are such hard decisions.
I’ve been there.
The mom in France wrote me back again to tell me she’s not going to keep her almost 3-year-old in school this year:
Jennifer—what a relief to read your reply… thank-you for taking the time to read my email and write back.
It helps to know that there is a chance that my son will eventually go off to preschool quite happily and that crying desperately isn’t a pre-requisite.
We really like the maternelle (that he would attend and which his older brother does attend), but it just feels such a huge step for him (as he has so impressively expressed), especially with 25 other children, only 1 teacher and 1 assistant.
Although each child is different, your son’s situation felt so similar to my own experiences that I felt there is good chance his eventual preschool entry could also be similar.
So, fingers crossed for when I try again when he is nearly 4.
In the meantime, I’ll introduce him to a couple of parent /child playgroups, music / baby gyms which he’ll love, just as long as he can keep one eye on Mum.
It really is good to have corresponded with you, to hear from another mum who has reacted in the same way to ‘pressures’ to put our very young children somewhere where they are just not happy or even scared.
For our son the answer to the question, ‘Should 3-year-olds go to school?’ seems to be no.
Every child’s different and every child grows and matures at a different pace.
When my son’s older sister was 3, she told us it was time for her to go to preschool and we should find her a good one.
We wanted her home with us but she was ready to spread her wings.
She was a 3-year-old who wanted to go to school.
So she started school! Our son was different. He needed the extra time at home with us.
A friend of mine is a wonderful, skilled, and experienced preschool teacher who has many lovely 2 and 3-year-olds who do just fine in school.
She had something brown on her shirt when I ran into her today.
“Paint?”
“Blood.”
“Blood?”
“Today was the first day of school. A kid got a gash in his forehead. He’s not even three. He needed stitches.”
Then she leaned in closer to me.
“He was pushed,” she whispered. “And his mom had been on the fence about sending him to school. I doubt he’s coming back. It wasn’t a good day…”
I walked my daughter to her gymnastics class thinking about the reader in France who wrote to me.
Should 3-year-olds go to school?
Some 3-year-olds are ready to go to school. But others just aren’t.
There are doubtless some benefits to socialization, but I don’t think that children really learn anything from other 2 and 3-year-olds they are unrelated to that is more important or somehow better than what they’re learning from their parents and siblings.
There is no real “scientific evidence” that school is the best choice for young children.
We have a cultural expectation in America that children barely out of diapers should be in social settings even though this is so obviously not right for all children.
Listen to your child and yourself.
School will be there when your child is ready.
School can wait.
Published: September 1, 2009
Last Update: January 30, 2020
I think it is a personal choice that varies from mom to mom and child to child. THanks for exploring this.
This post was particularly of interest to me because I worked as a toddler teacher in a day care center for a year, and because I, too, raised my children in France. I was confronted with pressure to put my first child in school early. Actually, the school yard was right below our windows, and he WANTED to join the kids rushing around outside. He did not speak French at that point. We let him go to school at 2 1/2 years old. There were tears, but he adjusted well, and being a social kid, blossomed. My younger daughter, however, was given a horrible teacher for her second year of pre-school, one who, one day, punished her for wearing nail polish. That did it. My daughter missed most of that school year, and it was fine with me at her staying home. I think it depends on the child, and the situation. That being said, it is perfectly normal for a child to cry on his/her first few days of pre-school. What is not normal is when tears continue after that period is up.
Wow, this really hits home these days for me as I am in the midst of the NYC preschool application process for baby girl. She’ll be 3 next November. I personally think she’ll love it as she’s obsessed with her little preschool prep class, but your post was very reassuring. Out of my 3 brothers and myself, two of us were ready for school early and two of us needed to wait a year. My mother based it on her intuition and our individual personalities.
I really think it depends SO MUCH on the child, as you have all mentioned here. What’s right for one is not right for another, and this has NO reflection on the future. Your mom did it just right, Almost Slowfood, in letting each child pick his/her time to start school…
I, too, think it’s a very individual thing which varies from child to child. My youngest was “expelled” from pre-school when he was three; he was too unhappy and just not ready at all. I took him out and we had the most wonderful year together. That’s what he needed at the time, and I was not going to push him just because his older brother did it. They were, and still are, all these years later, much different children.
I agree with what others have said already, preschool is such a personal decision based on the personality of your child–and you. I chose to do a preK co-op with friends three times a week. It was a great experience for all involved.
As a parent of a 3-year-old who’s been in preschool 3 days a week since 2 yrs, 9 months, I can say that for her it was definitely the right decision. In part because she was ahead of the curve cognitively but I think (in retrospect) really came to thrive in the preschool setting, esp. with the social interactions with peers that as an (at the time) only child she lacked at home. But I would be the first to say that’s just one family’s experience with one and, so far, only one toddler. Your mileage *will* vary.
I think as others have said, it depends upon the child. I’ll also add that IMO it depends upon the *program. A two and a half year old child does not need ditto sheets, alphabet practice, or to learn to sit. If a child that age IS going to be in a program, I hope that parents will explore options to find one that allows hands-on activities and the possibility of getting dirty.
I didn’t send my older son to preschool until he was 4, and then I found a somewhat cooperative school that would let us do half days (in NYC, where we were living at the time, it was nearly impossible to find half day preschool or children who hadn’t been to “school” since they were 2 or 3). The slow transition was worth it. There is no way he would have been ready at age 3. My second son seemed different, so we did try him earlier, and then pulled him out after 2-3 weeks. The amount of distress he showed was just so obvious, and school went much easier for him when he went when he was nearly 4. I don’t know how it will go with my daughter, but I am sure we will just watch for signs because I think children are quite obvious when something is going far beyond their comfort level.