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Preschool Planning

Rachel Rainbolt, M.A., CEIM
www.OhanaWellness.com

Infants

Do not decide on child care before your baby is born.  If you are going to be returning to work shortly after birth, it would be foolish to not have already done your research.  Instead of settling on what you think is the best fit for a baby you have yet to meet, have it narrowed down to a few options.  I have known so many families that went so far as to place the deposit down only to meet their little one and throw those plans out the window.  Move through your pregnancy, preparing for your baby, with the mantra: flexible, in regard to your post birth child care plans.  Not only will you meet this new person for the first time but you will be a different person when the time comes to hand over your baby.  You may have planned to be a stay-at-home mom or dad but find yourself ready to return to work, feeling like you will be a happier, better version of yourself and in turn a better mother or father to your baby.  More commonly, you or your financial situation may have decided to return to work after a brief maternity leave only to lay eyes on your baby, step into motherhood or fatherhood, and watch those priorities rearrange and those plans fly out the window.  Take the time during your pregnancy to provide yourself with options, even if they are only well thought out plans.  That way, those first few months you will not be weighed down with the anxiety of feeling like time is pushing you closer to the edge of a cliff.  You will have a few bridges already built to get you to whichever path you feel compelled to walk down.      

When it comes to child care for an infant, you are limited for options and the price tag is hefty.  You have two basic options: in-home care or day care facility.  The pros to in-home care are that your baby will get a more intimate, homey experience that comes with a more emotionally bonded caregiver.  The cons to in-home care are that there is very little regulation and little to no supervision.  There is a higher potential for a loving experience and a greater danger that your baby could be gravely mistreated.  The pros to a day care facility are that there is standardization and lots of oversight.  What you see is what you get and the revolving door of caregivers and supervisors, in combination with legal standards means there is much less risk of maltreatment and danger.  The con to a day care facility is that your baby is not going to get an intimate level of care.  She will spend the majority of her day in a crib, picked up to be fed and changed on a schedule.  There are some very good home care providers and some very good day care facilities.  You just have to find the right one for your baby, a good fit for his personality and needs combined with your knowledge of what is in his best interest.    

Whether you choose in-home care or a day care facility, I recommend random visits.  Any facility or care provider that tells you that they discourage visits is waving a red flag.  Any minute a loving person in your baby’s life can spend with her is a treasure.  This most definitely includes mom and dad but also extended family and even friends.  Stop by on your lunch break or whenever you can for a cuddle or breastfeeding session.  Invite your cousin who lives nearby to stop in and hold her for a bit.  This will not only be good for your baby but will help to maintain a certain level of care.  If people who love that baby randomly show up then the care provider must always be caring for your baby as if you could walk in at any moment.  It’s not about inspections or instilling fear.  It’s about giving your baby love and the gift of time together when you can with the secondary benefit of your care provider caring for your baby as if you were there.     

Preschool

I began touring preschools and interviewing directors and teachers when my son was 18 months old.  At 4 years old, he began his first year of preschool.  It took that much time and effort to find the right fit for my son and it was worth every phone call, every visit, and every persistent conversation.

Begin your search long before your child will be ready to walk through those doors.  It will take you longer than you think to find the right fit for your child and when you do, you may be met with a wait list. 

On what are you basing your decision as to when your child will begin preschool?  Often we find ourselves going through the motions of what is expected.  It is important to look at why you are making the parenting choices you are making.  This is true of all aspects of parenting and the question of when to begin your child’s educational journey is no exception.  Ideally, it would be based on your child’s readiness to be enhanced by the school experience.  If you are using this indicator, you really won’t know until you are there.  It would be prudent to have some options already in place for when you find the time has arrived. 

It is important to note that school is not a substitute for good parenting.  If you are enrolling your child in school with the hope that teachers will provide your child with the boundaries and guidance you are not, you are setting your child up for failure.  Most of us are not born and raised with the instinctive knowledge and positive life experience to parent our children in the way that we want and they need.  It is our responsibility to tap into resources to fill in any gaps so that we can grow into our best selves and whom our children need us to be.  Only if you are doing your job, can school do its job.   

Finding the right school for your child is hard work.  It is such an important responsibility.  It may seem daunting but as with most important and difficult things, you just have to take that first step.

1. Make a list of all of the possibilities.  Ask around, search online and look around your community. 
2. Eliminate possibilities on the list based on preliminary research.  This pretty much means that if there is information on the website or that you can get from an email or phone call that excludes them from the realm of possibility, cross it off the list. 
   Examples:
   You make $50K/year and the tuition at preschool A is $35K/year.
   You are atheist and preschool B has strict religious ideology with fundamentally opposing views to your own.  Note: I do not advise excluding a school just because it has a different religious base.  We live in a world full of lots of different ideas and people and exposure to that is not necessarily a bad thing.  There may be a fantastic school that is a great fit for your child that happens to be on the property of a church.  This example is more referring to extreme cases.  You are an evolutionary biologist and preschool B teaches students that science is devil’s blasphemy.  Or you are a Eucharist Minister in the Catholic Church and preschool B is a part of a devout orthodox Jewish Temple.          
3. Drop in to the school without an appointment to make the appointment.  Glean whatever you can from the mood and the environment.
4. Interview the director.  Bring a list of questions that pertain to your specific desires and concerns relevant to your child’s school experience.  The type of questions that will really be helpful to you in assessing a goodness of fit for your child will be scenario type questions.  Directors are pros at answering generic policy questions, providing answers that you want to hear- the answers that will generate more business for them while not actually meaning anything beyond the obvious.  They can’t get away with that if your questions are posed as policy questions but are scenario based, relating to your specific interests while not directly about your individual child.  For example, my son’s favorite color was pink and I have zero tolerance for bullying so I was looking for a school that would not allow any bullying and be focused on teaching and empathy building in the bully (breeding a culture that does not support bullying).  So one question I asked was, “What would happen if a male student wore pink shoes to school and another child told him pink was for girls?” 
5. Tour a classroom.  Witness the climate of the classroom (which is probably the single most significant indicator).  This is also your chance to observe the answers the director gave you in action.  For example, if you have a child who is not particularly assertive, it would be very illuminating to see how the staff responds if one child takes a toy away from another child.  You also want to casually interview a teacher during your tour and ask the same type of questions you asked the director.  “If a child does _____, how would you respond?”
   Example: I walked into a classroom with the director and noticed that the wall between two of the classrooms was only a half wall.  I turned to the director and asked why they chose to put a half wall between the two classrooms. 
   What he said: “It’s better for resale value of the space <pause> and it’s nice because one teacher can watch over another teacher’s classroom if the teacher needs to leave the room for any reason.”
   What I heard: Business is my top priority.  Your child’s educational experience comes second.  And our classrooms are frequently, and illegally, over ratio (1 teacher to 2 classrooms worth of children). 

You will find that there were some preschools that looked great on paper (or on the web, or as a recommendation from a friend) but once you are in the environment, interacting with the staff, you know it is not a good for your child.  Don’t feel like any tour is a waste of time because you learn so much from every school visit.  It’s really only after several school tours that you are able to figure out what you like, what you don’t, and what makes a good fit for your little one.

I had always assumed my child would start preschool at 3.  In my experience as a preschool teacher, I found a marked shift between the 2 and 3 year old classrooms.  The classrooms for children younger than 3 were more like child care whereas the classrooms for children 3 and older were more like school.  I also felt that at 3 a child could communicate any dissatisfaction with the school experience that could be taking place while no loving caregiver was present in a way that a 2 year old could not.  It was all very rational. 

Then I met my son.  When he turned 3, we had absolutely no desire to leave him in a school setting.  He was flourishing with the world as his classroom.  He was intellectually advanced, highly communicative and inquisitive, with a high emotional IQ and highly developed social skills.  We always allowed him to lead the way down his path of independence and he informed us that he was not ready to leave his family.  After spending years researching preschools we had already selected the right school for him and I placed him on the wait list for the following school year so we could once again evaluate his entrance into preschool. 

As his fourth birthday approached, he was ready.  He was beginning to become bored by the level of stimulation I could provide (while caring for his baby brother) and his confidence and independence had grown significantly since the previous year.  We knew he was ready and he knew he wanted to go to school.  As we had all hoped, he blossomed throughout his year of preschool.  His 3 half days a week were perfect for him and the program we had selected suited his needs and our concerns.  It was a good fit.        

The affect of a good school (or a bad one) cannot be underestimated.  A good school should build on your child’s strengths and bring out his potential.  It should foster your child’s love of learning in a safe and positive environment.  If your school isn’t, it is your job as your child’s advocate to speak up on his behalf and/or make a change.  Assertiveness is a skill that we must sharpen frequently in advocating for our children as parents.  You are the world’s foremost expert on your child.  Use that intimate knowledge of your child’s personality, strengths, and challenges to find the preschool that provides the best fit for your little one.  A good fit will result in an introduction to the world of education that is based on positive experiences and feelings of confidence, an ideal base for a lifelong respectful relationship with learning.      

------------------------Maximize the bonding time you do share together!-----------------------------

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