Hey ParentsFollow

and the rest of you, if you are so inclined. I've got a difficult parental decision to make and thought I would get your advice. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to try and inform you of all aspects.

You guys might remember that my son had some bullying issues last year with his preschool. Last year while this was going on he started to get violent at home. It wasnt until after he was out of school and away from the enviorment that his attitude did a complete reversal, bringing back the sweet natured boy I know. He's back at the same school now, and I will honestly admit that the teacher has really pulled together and the lines of communication are much more open than last year. She has made it a point to keep me informed daily of everything thats going on. And the kid who gave my son issues last year is also gone.

However, this preschool is primarily made for children with special needs, which my son does not have. And there are quite a few kids who can not, for whatever reasons, figure out what is acceptable behavior and what is not. While he seems to be much more eager for school than he was last year, other problems have been recently cropping up that are very similiar to last years events. Hubby and I have also noticed for the past two weeks a pattern emerging and my son is getting more violent again. Less in the physical nature, but hes been acting out verbally, and it is a complete 180 in what he normally is. I know it "could" be a phase and I am fine with that if it were, but after two weeks of hair pulling days, he finally opened up and told us he was having problems at school.

He's having a hard time with one kid who loves to grab his hair, and hes upset that the child doesnt understand after he tells him, that he doesnt like it. The child in question is autistic and I have tried explaining that part to him, but a 4 yr old cant quite grasp the answer. Its hard enough for an adult to get it sometimes. Also another boy, whom my son has a love/hate relationship with, has been getting more aggressive to my son. Both have strong personalities and are either the best of friends or worst of enemies, depending n the day. Lately, they have been having some strong altercations which I have been notified of, and yesterday the kid whacked my son pretty hard. My son looked him in the eye, told him he wasnt playing with him anymore, and walked away. The other child did get severely reprimanded for his actions, and my son was praised for the way he responded. I can see this being a good way for him to learn how to be the "better man" but I dont see it as being a good thing that he has to deal with this as often as he has been. He's only 4.

Another reason, which is far less important, but still factors in, is their change of payment methods. This year the school decided to do quartly payments instead of weekly or monthly. This would have been fine, but for a school, they dont know what the hell quarterly means. 5 weeks ago I paid a huge sum, and now another huge sum is due. We were given 4 days notice last time to come up with almost $700 and are expected to have another $700 lying around mere weeks later. They also will not accept weekly fees this time, or monthly. While the amount per week is viable for us to pay, the way they have it set up is very hard to stay afloat of the rest of our bills. Im not alone in this as every other parent on the playground is grumbling mutiny about it.

Lastly is the fact that my son really isnt learning anything there. I get weekly reports of what he has done during the week and its always about stringing beads, or painting with a potato masher, or singing songs that he tells me in the car, he hates. I have yet to see any work brought home working with numbers or letters. He and I "work" daily together on a book he loves, which helps him learn the shape, sounds, and how to write capitol and lower case letters. He's learning how to spell and write simple words at home, but I see nothing like that in school. Basically it seems like Im paying a lot of money for my son to go play and have issues with the kids with special needs.

So we've come to the point where we are seriously thinking of taking him out of school until kindergarten starts up. He already has 2 swim lessons a week plus one free swim time, a gymnastics class, and a story time at the library. While I had originally put him in school for the social aspects, he now has enough of that, and I think he's starting to learn the wrong social aspects at school. I also figured I could find him a couple more things to do, like ice skating ( which he has been asking to learn) and could easily take him to the local kids museums for less than Im paying for his school. Also, we try and go out to some cool thing each weekend, a museum in Boston, a fair, etc. And Im willing and able to take out an hour or two per day, in spurts, to work more on learning new things.

My only concern is that its going to be a big change for him, esp with a baby about to arrive in 6 weeks. Also he says he likes school, but in the next breath hes complaining about some kid who did XYZ. So what would you do? Would you take your child out of preschool or keep him in? And how do you explain your reasonings to a 4 yr old so that they can understand, and hopefully accept, without massive repercussions?

/agree with Joph

He'll get plenty of social activity when he gets into kindergarden, and it won't have to be with retards.







OK, "special needs" if you prefer. Sheesh.

I'd say the proof is in how he acted when he was home with you. It's the situation bringing him grief, and he doesn't have the tools to deal with it yet. I say get him a V-Smile (my nephew learned almost all his letters, colors, etc with that thing) and make time to practice the alphabet, watch Sesame Street, etc. The change when the baby comes is inevitable, but at least he'll get this brief time alone with you before that happens, and you can use that to teach him that change is okay.

I'm not sending Mia to pre-school because, dammit, I can teach her myself and it costs a frick of a lot less.

Yay!

Additionally, as an aside, they say that you are the company you keep. If you want to be a millinaire, surround yourself with millionaires. Environment does have a big impact on a person's life, growing up and in adulthood. Review the environment that you have described that you are putting your child in. Does the environment produce an image of what you want your child to turn out like? If it does, then you are all set. If not, you may want to reconsider having him spend even another day there.

Echoing Flea on the V-Smile. Noah has one, and he's learned a ton from it. And it's one of those things where the kid is having fun, so he doesn't realize he's being taught, so it's fun when they actually realize they've learned something.

Also, Noah's never been to pre-school, he just stays with a woman here who keeps him 3 days a week. She also keeps other kid occasionally, so he's learning socialization that way. He knows his shapes, colors, numbers, letters, etc. also.

I say take him out and just let him start next year in kindergarten.

Isn't that short for "Vertical Smile"? No wait, that can't be right in this context...

Or an FFXI player.

You know, I know what a VSmile is and I still think that every time I heard the term.

It really is an extraordinarily poorly named product.

I grabbed my mom on the phone during her lunch hour and shes going to bring over preschool activity and learning ideas today when she visits. We touched on the subject a little bit and she informed me she had an indication that something was up this past weekend when he was over due to his lack of wanting to talk about school. Normally hes very vocal but refused to talk about school with her which is very unlike him. She was going to ask me if something was wrong today so its not just myself and my husband noticing it as well. That there makes me feel like Im on the right path, knowing that as a grandmother, but also as a preschool teacher herself, she could sense the wrongness of the past few weeks.

It's just hard because I know despite the issues he does have a lot of fun at school too. It's the one time during the day where he gets to grow as an individual sans parents hovering over him, and he also learns that there are other adults he can go to besides myself or his dad. But that and his time to play with other kids just does not seem to be worthwhile enough for everything else hes dealing with there.

Thanks for the advice guys and the well wishes. Just being able to write out the situation and vent a touch then to get advice from people I chat with daily has made it a little less of a headache than it could otherwise be. Rate ups all around

I rated you up. Twice even!

ok one more time but no more freebies unless you have more good advice to give about this situation