Three Year Olds - Home or School?

For moms with no choice about work, the answer is simple, but the choice of where is harder. Amy is right that day care and preschool are not the same thing.


ASK AMY
Should 3-year-old be at home or preschool?
by AMY DICKINSON

Dear Amy:

I am the mom of a wonderful 3-year-old. I feel like I am the only mom in my area who does not send her 3-year-old to preschool.

Is it an academic requirement that children attend preschool?

We go to the library for story time and attend play groups. My son knows his numbers, colors, etc. My son will be almost 6 when he starts kindergarten.

If I were to send him to preschool now, he'd have three years of "school" before kindergarten!
When I'm asked if he is attending preschool, my response is: "No, I'm keeping him to myself."
Is this being selfish? Why should I pay to send him to preschool when I could send him to day care? Preschool and day care are the same thing, right?

No Preschool for Me

Dear No Preschool:

Preschool and day care are not the same. Preschool and day care generally have different hours of operation, staff with different certifications and qualifications, different standards regarding the ratio of staff to kids, and different age ranges of children who attend.

It is your choice whether to send your son to preschool. Story time, playgroups and time with you are all vital to his emotional and intellectual development. Zero to Three, a child-advocacy group, says, "Learning social skills is certainly very important for young children. The more experience they have interacting with peers, the more they learn about how to get along with others, and the richer their world becomes as they develop new relationships."

My own experience as a mom and as a substitute teacher at a preschool convinced me that 3- to 5-year-olds can benefit from quality preschool -- partly because they can learn these "pro-social" skills independently of their parents.

If you are not sending your son to preschool because you want to keep him to yourself, then that seems like a stifling choice if he could otherwise be enrolled in an enriching preschool program.
If you are not sending him to preschool because he's fine right where he is, then more power to both of you.