New preschool …. again

 

Well, we finally had the last straw. 

 

It all came to a head last week when Lance was taking him to preschool in the morning and he said that he was crying and saying he didn’t like preschool – like he has been doing every morning since switching to this new preschool.  He would cry and beg and plead not to go saying that nobody liked him and he didn’t have fun.  It broke our hearts to hear this over and over again, but to some extent – this is to be expected.  After a fun weekend at home – who would want to go to preschool? 

But this was different – we’d been trying to make this work and trying to make this work for a long time.  What was going on?

After reflecting for a bit we realized that his personality had changed since we’d been going to this preschool.  He is very outgoing and always wants to play, but especially these past few weeks at Wiggle Worms he hasn’t wanted to do anything – just sit on the sidelines and not participate.  It’s so odd for him – but we finally put the clues together.  He thinks of Wiggle Worms as another “preschool” with a “teacher” and he doesn’t want to do it.  He has loved Wiggle Worms in the past and has been fully of energy running up and down the trampoline and jumping in the blocks. 

 

After our the last preschool that was so wonderful and Alex loved it – this was a hard one to take:

1). drop off at 7:45 AM – probably followed by 1+ hours of cartoons – is this what we pay almost $1000/month for?  And that is just the morning.  I have no idea how much tv he actually watched there. 

2). heavy emphasis on kindergarten readiness – letters and numbers and coloring “in the lines” with no imagination work or play or art.  No play-doh, etc.  He’s 2 1/2!  Who cares if he can color in the lines?

3). two boys who are older (that also have older brothers) that taught Alex about fighting, sending him to “jail”, and “guns”.  The teacher would say that when they did it too much that she would put them in time-out and say “you know how boys are”.  (Although I know this is probably inevitable  at some point when he’s older – I don’t think it’s OK to have this be his day when he’s just 2 1/2!)

4). He fell off a toy and hit his mouth pretty hard.  His gums bled a bit, but there was no incident report.  She told us about it – but nothing else.  When we asked him about it – he said it really hurt and he cried and cried.  We took him to the dentist  (at his regularly scheduled appt) and they said that his two lower teeth are LOOSE!   I can’t believe this one!

5). A teacher who answers the door and expects the parents to just leave their kids there “it just works better this way” and who doesn’t give some sort of synopsis of his day either written or verbal.

6). lack of supervision – often I come to pick up and the kids are outside on this covered deck with a locked gate.  She is sometimes in the bathroom changing a kid and the kids are outside by themselves unsupervised. 

After writing all of that – I feel bad that we didn’t do something sooner.  How awful!  We finally put all the clues together and had the last straw.  Time to find a new preschool – not an easy task.  Especially considering all the other things going on.

 

But, craigslist came through for me again!  We found a wonderful preschool and visited last week – just Lance and I.  There were lots of toys and the teachers looked happy and engaging.  The kids were all happy looking as they got their coats and shoes on to go outside.  It was much more like our last preschool that we loved so much.  It’s a Mom who has her two kids there as well as other kids.  She’s been in business for 3 years and has 1 full time teacher and 2 part time teachers.  She has a well established routine.  We were very impressed with the whole setup.  She diapers/potty times the kids all at the same time so they can learn from each other, with as needed diaper changes/potty times of course!

So, Monday morning we took Alex to visit and meet everyone and he loved it!  We were welcomed in and introduced to everyone.  We got to see other parents drop their kids off and we liked what we saw – parents who came in and took a few minutes to get their kids adjusted and the kids were happy when they left.  After a few minutes of being shy, Alex started playing with the cars and trains, play-doh, tools and other kids.  They got to watch the salamander get fed crickets.  It was so fun he didn’t want to leave!  It was definitely a rough time to have to go back to the dreaded preschool after seeing such a wonderful place. 

 

But, we only have 6 more days left and we’re outta there!  Such a weight has been lifted off our shoulders – it was hard to keep track of how bad it had gotten until we put it all together.  It’s difficult to put all this in words – it’s confusing and has been a tough situation for us.