And now a word on education.....

The word whammer is what you see, you made that super-duper exellently
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Ok. Here we go. I know that there will be lots of people with lots of different opinions on the following subject. So let me say right now that this is MY opinion for MY kids and I am in no way trying to tell anybody else what to do with their own kids. But this is my blog so I get to write my opinion. That's how it works.

So, I have been thinking LONG and HARD about the whole preschool thing. You see, technically Adam is already nearly a year behind. Most the kids in his sunbeam class started preschool last fall at the age of 3. Adam will be 4 in less than a week and has not as yet started preschool. Last fall it wasn't really an option for us as we were still working on the whole potty training thing. But this upcoming fall I need to make a decision.

And believe me I have been bombarded with options. Some where he goes 4 days a week, some 2 days a week, some expensive, some less expensive, some require my volunteer time, some I drop him off and don't see him again for hours on end......it's enough to make a mother's head spin. And since Adam is my oldest child and hence my first child there are plenty of women in the ward and neighborhood all too willing to give me their opinion on what I should be doing.

But like I said, I've thought long and hard about it. And here is the conclusion I have come to.......I'm not going to put him in preschool at all. period. end of discussion.

okay, not really the end of discussion, since now I'm going to give you all my reasons for this decision.

See, I think kids are only kids once and school is going to monopolize his life soon enough as it is. Why rob him of precious childhood free time by forcing him into school too soon?

Not to mention I have already confessed that I am a slacker mom (and proud of it, by the way) and the sooner I start him in school the sooner I have to start running him to school on a set schedule certain days of the week, which means packing the other kids in the stroller or car just to drop him off and pick him up however many times a week and I'm just not ready to do that yet.

I really like what Muffy Mead-Ferro (author of the Confessions books) has to say about the subject as well. (side note, reading her books didn't make my decision for me. I don't let people I have never met make my parenting decisions for me. I just happen to really agree with what she says and as she is a published author I think she says it quite eloquently.)

"It's not just my reluctance to drive myself insane by overloading our schedules, though. I also wonder, if I left my kids with no time or opportunity to think for themselves and solve their own problems, even in terms of coming up with something to do to entertain themselves, whether I would really be enriching them. It feels more like shortchanging them. And I wonder, if my daughter always had to leave home in order to qualify as doing something worthwhile, whether she would have the opportunity to develop strong relationships with her brother, her father, or me. I wonder, if my son was pushed to achieve from the time he was two, whether he might burn out at ten. And I wonder if there is any evidence that success in life is so formulaic that we can program our kids to succeed just by enrolling them in enriching activities from the time they are small. How do we know it's not just as enriching, and just as likely to lead to success in life, for them to be mowing the lawn or washing the car?"

She says a whole lot more, but for that you'll have to read her books.

Now some of you may be all up in arms about this! You want to scream at me "aren't you afraid he'll be behind when he hits kindergarten? Aren't you worried the other kids will learn how to read and write and add first? And what about Harvard? How on earth is he going to get into Harvard if he doesn't go to preschool?"

To which I respond, he will be just fine. I never attended preschool and somehow I managed. (Quite well I might add, if I can say that without being obnoxiously vain.) You see, he already knows his colors and numbers and letters and even a few simple words. He also knows rudimentary math skills. (just ask anybody who has seen him bargain with me about how many bites of dinner he has to eat before getting done to play.)

Yes, I'm sure some of those kids that attended preschool will be "ahead" of him in some areas. But that's life. There will always be somebody better then you at some things, as well as somebody worse than you. And perhaps kindergarten is as good a time as any for him to learn that. I'm okay with it if he doesn't look at life as a competition in which he has to be better than everybody at everything! I mean what 4 year old needs that kind of pressure?

For now let's just say that I have decided to give Adam one more year of childhood. I hope that someday he will thank me.