While everybody’s situation is different, here are 7 factors to consider before sending your kids to traditional preschool (if you have the opportunity to either send your children to preschool or not send them):

• The cons of sending your kids to preschool
• The pros of homeschooling your preschooler
• Your kid’s desires and the impact consideration (or lack of consideration) of those desires will have on the relationship between you and your child
• The importance of truly valuing the process of education
• How to handle peer pressure
• Listening to your heart and intuition
• A happy solution for addressing early education

 

Top 5 Cons of Sending Your Kids To Traditional Preschool

As convenient as sending your kids to preschool may seem…. it is important that you fully think-through the ramifications of what sending your kids to preschool can mean for your family.

Let’s start off with the tiny things and work our way up.

1. Propensity To Get Sick

   • Your kids will be exposed to more germs year-round and this will increase their propensity of getting sick. And getting their siblings sick. And getting you sick. (Bet you hadn’t thought of this possibility thoroughly, had you?)
   • Yes, this germ exposure will strengthen their immune systems, hopefully, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they’ll get sick.

2. You Will Start To Chauffeur Your Child Around A Year Sooner*

   • (* Or more, depending on what age your kids are when you send them to preschool).
   • This might not seem like a big deal, but it’ll have repercussions on your night routine, sleep (or lack of it), morning routine, time, stress, gas, pocketbook, vacations and end-of-the-school-day arrangements.

3. They Will Pick Up Bad Habits

   • Umm, how can we put this lightly? The more people your kids encounter, the more ideas they’ll get (whether they’re positive or negative). And no, our kids aren’t saints, but as parents we try our best to minimize their exposure to certain things in life, language, topics, bad habits, ways of being. And when they’re not under our supervision, what they get exposed to is not something that we can control.  And that will be tough on you. But more than ever, character development is important.

4. You Will Surrender Teaching, Educating And Your Overall Time With Your Children To Someone Else During This Impressionable Age AND Your Authority, Whether You Like It Or Not, May Be Diminished

   • You will no longer be the only one your kids want to please. Take that in for just a second. Yep, someone else can be above you in their totem pole of “the important people in their life” and that will hurt your heart, your soul, and let’s face it, your ego. You will probably start hearing things like, “my teacher says that __.” or “That’s not the way my teacher Ms./Mr. (blank) taught me.” And while yes, there are other adults who can show your child about school subjects, life, and manners… sharing your child’s love, appreciation and admiration with other people may be difficult. Plus, knowing kids, what other people teach them can be used to challenge you.

5. You Will Miss Your Child When They’re Away

• And once you let them go to school… it’ll be a constant letting go. That time that you decide that you want them to spend in preschool will be time that you will never, EVER get back. (Don’t you just get teary-eyed thinking about it?)

And while I could list the top give pros of preschool, why not spend this time that we have together more wisely by taking it up a notch and sharing with you the 5 things that make teaching your preschoolers worth it?

 

6 Pros That Make Homeschooling and Teaching Your Preschoolers Worth It

1. You Get To Be With Them Longer

   • You can spend more of their childhood with them. And while it may seem like a little thing… years down the road, when they graduate from high school, you and I will be blessed, thankful and count our lucky stars that we opted to spend more time with them for a bit longer. Think about it, if time has gone by fast between the time they’re born to the time they turn 4, can you imagine how fast it’ll seem like time went by the time they graduate from high school? So honestly, we don’t have a second to lose. No moment is guaranteed. And, we shouldn’t take anything for granted.

 

2. You Get To Be A Witness To Their Learning Unfolding

• You realize what they are learning not through what someone else writes to you on a slip of paper every day or when report cards roll around, but on the learning you and your child make happen together.

 

3. You Can Cater To Their Learning Style Based On What You Know About Them Now And What You Continue To Learn About Them As They Continue To Grow

• This tailoring of their education can catapult them even further… and at the very least, it can allow them to associate learning with positivity, love and connection.

 

4. You Can Continue To Positively Influence Them and Be One Of The Two Main Role Models In Your Life

• While it isn’t about cocooning your kids forever, you, and hopefully your spouse, are the people who have your child’s best interest at heart. And no matter how absolutely wonderful a teacher or daycare giver is, they’re not you.

 

5. You Can Create Memories Together

• The beauty about preschool is that even though it’s highly encouraged, at least in the U.S., it is not mandatory.
• Your children came into your life not so that you can shoo them away, as soon as you had the first opportunity.
• So have fun with that blessing they are. Enjoy it. Laugh together. Play together. Learn together. Make sense of Life together. Earn their trust. Earn their love.

Prove to kids, out of love for them, that the title of parent suits you.

 

6. You  Can Strengthen The Bond Between You

• If you came across a Genie who asked you, what you would like more of… I bet one of the things you would want more of is time.
• And who can you have the best time spent with? Your kids, of course.
• Hopefully you understand that NOTHING that I have shared with you hear is encouraging you to create a codependent relationship with your children.
• That’s a no-no, and a loose-loose for you and your child… practically for the rest of your life. So that’s not what I’m encouraging AT ALL.
• What I am encouraging you to consider, if you can is to invest one more year raising your little ones.

Parenthood is a gift, not a chore.

 

 

Take Your Kid’s Desires Into Consideration

While I’m all for instilling a love of education into your child… one of the most heart-wrenching, difficult and at the same time beautiful things about being a parent is seeing your babies grow so fast that one day you’re faced with the dilemma of whether you’ll send your kids to preschool or not.

And while the choice is very personal… have you ever stopped to think about who your kids would prefer to learn from?

You may immediately think that just because your child has made or can make new friends when interacting with groups of children, that they would prefer to go to school.

But let me turn the question around: If YOU were a preschooler, who would you prefer to be the one to teach you… your mom/dad (depending on who you get along the best with) OR a random teacher?

The choice is pretty clear, right? You don’t need to have a super mom as a mother or a super dad as a father to prefer having them teach you over someone else.

On the contrary, come to think of it, perhaps the ONE thing your parents could have given you MORE of while you were growing up was PRECISELY their time and undivided attention so that you truly felt connected to them.

Connection doesn’t just happen, you have to plan for if.

Said another way,

Connection isn’t a given, it is given.

The simple fact that they are your parents makes you prefer them over other people.

And while you can’t rewind the clock of time and have your parents give you what they didn’t, if YOU are a parent,  then you’re in a very special circumstance in which you can offer YOUR children the gift of education. The gift of your time. The gift of your undivided attention.

And THAT can make all the difference in how they develop as a life-long learner.

 

 

Truly Value Education And Its Process

Look, I get it. Educating your children takes time. And sometimes, what we want as parents is the immediate gratification of getting a return on the time we invest in teaching our children. We want one aha moment after the other. We want our children to get one concept after the other. Boom. Boom. Boom.

But learning is moe like making a puzzle and less like playing with a remote control car.

So in some ways, for some parents, going to work at a traditional job and getting a return on your time in the form of money is perhaps more gratifying seeing your child have all the aha moments you wish they had and master all the skills you can’t wait for them to master.

It takes time to teach your child to recognize each letter one by one and spell them one by one. Make their sound one by one. Put them together one by one. Learn their nuances. Etc. Etc. This applies to language and to anything.  Kids learn a concepts usually one by one. Over time. At their own pace, not yours.

And this effort, this wait, and your lack of time, subconsciously or consciously makes you think that you’re not cut out to teach your child. But you are. Every since they were born, you’ve been  your child’s teacher. And the amount of effort you put in now will highly impact how successful they are in school.

The parents who invest in their children’s education the most, are the typically the parents of the brightest kids in the class.

Yes, there are many resilient kids out there that shine in their academic life as a way of getting the praise and recognition from their teachers that they’re not able to get from their parents… but if you’re wanting to equip your child to be bright AND confident…. you have to be there cheering your kids along the way.

Intelligence is awesome. But intelligence with self-consciousness, self-doubt and lack of support is not awesome. Intelligence in that sense often becomes a burden for that insecure child. A never-enough as a human. A never-smart-enough as a learner. It turns into a perpetual pursuit to be smart despite knowing that their intelligence is often what is separating them from their parents.

So… either you as a parent champion and applaud intelligence… or your child, no matter how smart she/he is… may use that intelligence as a buffer between you and them. Their intelligence will be the blanket with which they hide their insecurities. And their potential in life won’t be as high as it could have been with your supporting who they are, with their high intelligence and all.

 

Don’t Let The Peer Pressure Get The Best Of You

There are many parents who believe that it’s more important to give their kids “the best” instead of giving them the best of themselves.

Add to this dilemma the fact that many parents see OTHER parents focused more on giving THEIR kids things instead of quality time and all of a sudden you think that that is what YOU should do.

Plus, you ALSO see these parents send THEIR kids to school to preschool or daycare… and you think that that is what YOU should do.

But if you would stop to really ask a preschool teacher or even a daycare provider what THE #1 GREATEST benefit of sending your kids to them would be… do you know what they would say?

Socializing.

So if that’s the case, ask yourself, how much socializing does your child need based on his/her progress in the socializing department?

And can you provide other opportunities for him/her to socialize or do you feel like you have to send your child to preschool for this mostly socializing gain?

Remember, it’s not a monkey-see, monkey-do world. Even though it certainly feels like that at times.

 

 

Listen To Your Heart, Put Yourself In Your Child’s Shoes

Deciding whether or not to send your child to preschool or not will be one of those decisions in which you will have to do your research,do your due diligence, consider the options, weigh the pros and cons, but at end of the day, you’ll have to set that you’ve gathered aside for a moment, and tune into your intuition.

WHAT is really the best option for YOUR child?

Not for you. Not for your pocketbook. Not for your schedule. Not for your desire to please others.

But for YOUR child.

I don’t think anything gives you more peace of mind than  really putting yourself in your child’s shoes and offering them what at their stage in life is TRULY the best thing for them.

You will know when you have reached your conclusion from the heart, when you hear yourself saying, “Okay, I know what is best for my kid, and that’s what I’ll do.” You’ll feel peace about your decision.

Tip: If you make a decision and you feel antsy, uneasy, guilty, sad, or even mad at yourself and your partner for the decision that you’ve made individually or collectively revisit your heart. Tune in. Find that answer.

 

 

My Recommendation Based On This Analysis

I am the type of parent who wants to spend more learning time, quality time and simply more time with my kids. That’s why I believe that homeschooling preschoolers it the best choice and why I recommend the Mother Goose Time curriculum to you.

In a nutshell, this curriculum allows you to avoid the cons of sending your child to traditional preschool, enjoy the benefits of teaching them yourself by homeschooling them, and the quality of the curriculum and content is so high that you’ll feel good about having chosen this curriculum. And your kids will love it!

 

Mother Goose Time Curriculum Helps You Achieve Your Teaching Goals

Even though Mother Goose Time has been generous enough to send me this curriculum for free in exchange for my honest opinion about this program, you will struggle to find a better, more comprehensive, more child-centric and parent-centric program than this one.

I shared a post a couple week s ago that you might want to read if you haven’t yet… so that you can see what this curriculum is about, how you can adapt it to your child’s needs and what its benefits are. 

The important thing to remember is that the time you invest in your children now will come back to you many times over. Fingers crossed, this will make the tween and teen years easier to navigate.  😉
I will be sharing some Mother Goose Time activities with you next week so that you can get a better feel for what these lessons are about.

If you can’t wait for me to share them, you can always check out the official Mother Goose Time website.

 

Come Up With Your Own Verdict

Every family’s situation is different. So is every child. That is why you have to consider the situations that are ideal for you.

 

 

Now It’s Your Turn

How did you come to terms in deciding whether or not to send your kid to preschool?

If you’re in the process of deciding whether you’ll be sending your child to traditional preschool or not, what do you think you will ultimately end up doing?

Share your thoughts with me in the comments below