Delay Starting Preschool?

Stepping Stone

I have a wonderful little boy who will be 3 at the end of October. He goes to an excellent childminder 5 days a week and is well on track with speech, etc. The issue is that he’s painfully shy. He’s confident around us (parents), grandparents, childminder and the other small group of kids there, but that’s it.

He has several cousins, all a very similar age and they are all fine around people. He clings to us, cries and just refuses to engage with them. In fairness, they are louder than he’s used to, but it’s the same for every other child. He won’t go into the playground unless it’s empty. He will look at the floor and cling to us if we’re in the shop, etc. and we see another child. We’ve taken him to soft play, children’s events, etc. and he’s absolutely distraught when he sees other kids.

I know that the September start is 7 months away, but he’s so, so shy that I’m thinking about delaying it for a year. I know that this means that if he does the two years, he’ll be 5, going on 6 starting school but he’s just not able for situations and children that he doesn’t know really well.

My husband thinks that we should just send him and he’ll be grand, but in reality our parents sent all kids to school early (emotionally). I was kept back (still dealing with that mentally), my brother was not but started college at 17, messed up, dropped out and went back as an adult. My husband and his siblings were all late spring to end of July babies and started at 4. Two of them never succeeded at school (academically, socially, sport-wise) because of the ages that they started. My husband and one other have the earliest birthdays so did well academically but not socially. I’m very eager to give my son every advantage that I can and if he’s not socially able, I don’t want to force it. I actually want him to be a confident and happy person, have lots of friends and a good experience of school (unlike us).

has anyone been through this? How did your children fare?

Big Bag of Chips

3 at the end of October is still quite young. And October is a long way away. He gets on ok with the kids in his childminder's, so chances are he'll slot in with pre-school when the time comes. He might be a bit shy or upset at first, but preschool teachers are used to dealing with shy, upset preschoolers all the time!

4 turning 5 is a pretty good age for starting junior infants. You can't be thinking 13/14 years down the line at this stage. You need to work with what you have now. And maybe starting pre-school could be the best thing for him to help him meet new children and get comfortable in their company. He might always be a bit shy, introverted. And that's ok.

I think talk to the preschool closer to the summer and ask their advice. You can always remove him if he's really not settling. Would you invite 1 child from the childminder's over to your house to play someday? Then another day try to arrange to meet the same child/another friend at the playground etc. Go on a quiet morning when there's not likely to be too many around.

Princess Calla

This is a topic that comes up a fair bit, usually more to do with starting primary school admittedly.

Questions to ponder.

Will he be toilet trained? My preschool refused nappies/pull ups. (Management has changed and that rule has gone but it might be an issue)

In my experience kids are always clingy around parents , parents are then quickly forgotten once they leave.

My kids don't like rough play and will shy away from boisterous kids. There probably will be other quiet natured kids in their class.

When my eldest was starting school we mulled over start age as April baby so could have started at 4 or 5....there's a few primary school teachers in extended family and they said start after 5th birthday.... obviously there's a bias there as an older child isn't as demanding. However we started at 5 and they are flying it.

Fine motor skills need to be considered, can they open/close their jacket ,shoes, lunchbox etc

They get homework from senior infants up and some parents are saying it takes their children over an hour to do and they have to sit with them. Now I know every child is different etc but it takes mine 20-30 mins if even and all we have to do is check it.

We also weighed up teenage years, we preferred for them to be on the older side of class group rather than the younger end (though obviously their out of school peer group maybe different)

As far as I know there has to be extreme reasons now for a child to be kept back a year. It's not done as freely as it once was.

There's still plenty of time to decide 😊