Sending Kids to Daycare and Preschool

I assumed that, as a stay-at-home mom and future homeschool educator, I wouldn't have to deal with the decision of sending my kids to daycare and then preschool.  But one by one, more and more playdate moms have started revealing to me that they're sending their kids to some sort of organized school-ish environment, if even for a few hours each week.  My first shock was when other stay-at-home moms started doing it.  My second shock came when a future homeschooling mom likewise revealed that her elder child will be starting preschool in September.  Note that "shock" does not mean "disapproval".  It just wasn't on my radar.  I assumed that only working-for-pay moms sent their kids to daycare or preschool, out of necessity.

But I would be lying if I said the thought of sending my own daughter somewhere outside the home for "enrichment" never crossed my mind.  In fact, it has recently crossed my mind as I lamented having to stop any serious preschool homeschooling with the birth of Antonio.  During my pregnancy, I really enjoyed not only sharing various educational lessons with Natalia, but also documenting them and being able to see how she's learning.  Then I gave myself a couple of months after baby brother's birth for unschooling, and again I was pleased when I went to document these months to see how Natalia was learning without any advanced thought given by me to planning out what she should learn.

However, having a baby in the home who loves attention and physical proximity but doesn't care much for baby carriers has proven to be quite challenging.  At best, we have been able to take full advantage of our local library, both in terms of exploring lots of books, especially on nature, but also classic children's literature and even Spanish, as well as the occasional storytime where Natalia interacts with the librarian and other children.  And while this is all fine and good for the time being, I am not satisfied with this arrangement long-term.  And so when one mom after another started sharing with me where they are sending their kids, suddenly the idea arrived on my radar.

I immediately thought of Montessori preschool.  I knew that if I ever sent my kids to preschool, I'd want it to be Montessori.  I love the environment and philosophy behind Montessori.  We've incorporated various Montessori-inspired activities into our daily living over time.  I also like that the children are not segragated by age but that they are in a three-year age group, where younger children can learn from older ones, and the older kids can practice leadership skills while helping the younger ones.  But one internet search put the idea of Montessori preschool idea to rest.  Tuition.

A couple of moms have been praising the co-op preschool they've selected for their kids, and while I like the idea of spending most of the time outside, focusing on social interactions rather than premature academics, and the fact that it's a tiny fraction of what a Montessori preschool costs, I hesitate.

First of all, I would have liked to have been able to send Natalia somewhere right now, over the next few months, until Antonio becomes less clingy and I am freed up enough to take over homeschooling again.  But it seems that unless I were satisfied with a daycare, all preschools start and end along with the public school year, and there's a comitment generally for the school year.

But there's more.  I also do not like the idea of surrounding Natalia with other kids who, like her, have yet to learn proper social interaction skills, and let them influence each other for better or for worse.  One-on-one is one thing.  But in a classroom setting... and without my presence, it comes down to this: who knows what she'd actually be learning from her peers!  Name brands?  Disney characters?  Attitudes towards toys, food, clothes, hair, the list is really endless.  The whole point of me staying home, first of all, and then homeschooling is to maintain control over what my children are and aren't exposed to. (I use the word control here not in a Type-A personality way, but in the it's-my-responsibility-and-perogative-as-parent way.).  The point is for me to not delegate the task of raising them to others, whose values I may not share.

In addition, giving Natalia a regularly recurring time away from home would also limit her exposure to one of our minority family languages. (I say one of them, thinking here of Polish, because her Spanish exposure is mostly tied to when Oscar is home, which wouldn't change if she were to attend preschool.)  Especially during the first 5 or so years, language exposure is critical if we want fluency for our kids.  There is no need for us to worry about English for our kids, because we live in an English-as-majority-language community.  But if we want to safeguard our minority languages, we need to seek out more opportunities in Polish and Spanish, not less.

I understand why public (or even private) school-bound kids' parents may want to give their kids "a head start" by enrolling them in preschool.  Expectations for school kids has risen to unrealistic levels, so that arriving in Kindergarten on the first day of school, kids today are already expected to know the alphabet.  I disagree with such premature academics.  I didn't start to learn to read until I was 6 or 7, and I dare to say that my reading and writing skills are much better than most public school graduates, not to mention that I'm literate in three languages.  I don't say this to brag, but to prove a point - so-called "delayed academics" works, and it works better than premature academics.

But other than academics, school-bound kids also have to prepare for the social aspects of school.  For better or for worse, kids these days don't just go to school to learn (in fact, I doubt that's actually the reason for many anyway), but to make friends, try to fit in, learn what the mainstream says about what's normal and appropriate, and essentially lose themselves to group-think in many cases.  Bottom line, kids headed for school do need to be prepared for what that environment is like.  Standing in line, raising your hand before speaking, asking permission to go to the bathroom, taking turns with limited equipment or supplies, etc.  Without these skills, schools would be even more chaotic than they already are.  (Though not all agree, as the likes of Sudbury schools have started popping up more and more.)  As future homeschoolers, my kids have no need of these skills, especially not at age 3 or 4.

And so I conclude that in the end, the best decision for our family is to keep on trekking with what we've been doing.  Staying home together, building on family relationships as paramount, and only supplementing the value system we live at home by playdates and group events for kids.  That is enough.

Natalka's Preschool November - January

Just days before baby brother is born, doing a pelvic exam :)

Learning about falling leaves.

Practice on her parallel bars.

decorating her mini choinka

cracked open a whole walnut 

working on continents puzzle she helped me make

drawing Antonio's birth

face-off with a chameleon

helped daddy pick and cut Christmas tree

went fishing at the Science Museum

water play at the Science Museum

Sandbox experience

working on her jigsaw dinosaur puzzle

helping daddy cook

holding the reigns on the carousel horse

a little foodie - trying Indian food

meeting Chichi Jr

first ice of the season, up close

decorating live Christmas Tree (it was prickly!)

a favorite pretend game - calling Suzie Sheep on the hotel phone

Putting baby Jesus into the Manger on Christmas

working with her Nativity sticker scene

Changing Antonio's diaper

scissor practice with cutting strips

found a worm on a walk

work with snow

saw sea turtle at the Aquarium

working on new, small pieces dinosaur puzzle

we both learned not to draw with lipstic in the tub

serenading me on the guitar

vertical play - chalk and magnets

bird watching

cutting playdough

first face paint at the Dinosaur Exhibit

Discovering her own track in the snow

These are just the highlights of Natalka's "unschooled preschool", the moments that were captured.  So many more experiences have had to do with the care of her newborn baby brother, which can be seen in other posts under Antonio's updates.  As it turns out, we do not need a curriculum to learn, and we love it! :)

Happy New Year to my Natalka!

Dear Natalka,

You truly are the sunshine of my life.  You have grounded me in a way I wasn't expecting.  You have challenged me and stretched me and motivated me, and for my attempts at trying to keep up, you have rewarded me dearly.

Looking at your sweet face brings a warm feeling with a soft glow to my heart, and a broad smile to my face.  Listening to your antics, your clever ways of using the words you're acquiring, amazes me, as it shows me what unadulterated joyful learning can be.  Cuddling you close to me not only keeps me warm (since daddy set your body temperature to his in the weeks after you were born!), but often brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Three years ago, you were just a speck in daddy's and my imagination.  Two years ago, you were a dream come true, but we were so exhausted, it was hard to truly appreciate you!  A year ago, the fog started to lift, and since then, I've been amazed and thrilled on a daily basis that you are real, you are here, you are mine, and I am the luckiest person in the world to have both you and your daddy in my life.  One of you alone is an incredible gift, but the two of you together is like winning the jackpot.

My hope for you for the new year and beyond is that you cultivate your sense of wonder, keep your sense of humor, stay healthy and resilient as you have been so far, continue to inquire about the world around you, and always remember that you are loved.  You truly are a work of art, made in the image of God.  May you hold on to this knowledge through all the challenges of your long, joyful life.

I love you with everything that I am.  And I pray that I may be the mom you need me to be in order to grow into the woman you are destined to be.

With all my love, hugs, and kisses,

Mamusia

What About Unschooling?

I had previously taken a brief interest in unschooling, after reading "Learning All the Time" by John Holt, pioneer of this educational movement.  But the teacher in me wouldn't allow me to see outside the box.  So I have dabbled here and there, in Montessori, Classical, Unit Studies, Charlotte Mason, Waldorf... I knew for a fact that I wasn't going to be merely holding school at home with my daughter.  And the alternative options all had something of value to offer.  Since Natalia is only 2, I had settled on a Montessori-inspired approach, though I most definitely am still solidly in the Ecclectic camp of home educators.

I started to have an inkling that I had begun to go down the wrong path when I bought my first set of flashcards for her - shapes and colors.  Or maybe it was once I finally typed up a proper lesson plan with all the various areas of study I wanted to cover on a daily basis?  Perhaps it was actually much earlier, when the alphabet went up on our wall? Regardless, I had finally been awakened to the fact that I was trying too hard when I began reading "Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery" by David H. Albert.

Again, my gut objections rose to the top.  The idea of child-led learning sounds reasonable, sounds like the ticket to a truly freedom- and passion-based education, one that can set my daughter on the path to a lifetime of enjoying learning.  But.  But I'm still a teacher.  A big reason I wanted to homeschool was because I wanted to teach.  Also, how can I just sort of let her pick what she wants to learn about without first exposing her to what's even out there for her to choose from?

In the most recent conversation I had about this with a friend, I remember myself saying that at this point I'm definitely on board with unschooling for the teenage years - middle school (which I've already become convinced, from my time learning about the Classical approach, can be skipped entirely), and most definitely high school.  But the elementary years?  She's got to have some basics, doesn't she?

Eeek!  What are these basics, exactly?  And who decides what's basic knowledge, what's basically important to know?  Certainly not the school board or textbook authors or curricula writers.  But was I really doing my daughter any favors by merely replacing these "authority figures" with myself?

Well, I actually think the answer to that question is, yes.  As her parent, it is my responsibility to decide what she "ought" to be learning - about life, values, habits, etc.  So as long as I stay away from dry academic subjects, I have every right - responsibility even - to come up with a flexible, child-led to-a-degree, values-based curriculum.

To satisfy my teacher instinct, I see my role as twofold.  One, I will set forth goals for my daughter's education, but they will not be anything that can be measured via a standardized test.  When she was born - or even before - I had said that my goal for her is that she be healthy, happy, and kind.  And that still stands.  So as a home educating parent, I simply need to translate this three-fold goal into more practical experiences that I believe will enable her to reach this ideal.

And two, I do not need to put away all lesson plans and curricula in order to unschool.  Rather, I will write these as we go, filling in the details after the fact.  Instead of "what WILL we do in the area of math/science/language arts.... on Monday".... our approach will be, "what DID we do in the area of math/science/language arts.... on Monday?"

This will not only satisfy the teacher in me, but will also serve as an assesment of sorts, making sure that we do get around to the various areas that Big Brother mandates of us in our state.  This way, if we've been away from an area for too long, I'll know to gently steer our experiences in that direction for a while.

Yesterday was the first day I consciously paid attention to Natalia's lead, rather than trying to reference my lesson plan (which to be honest I hadn't even followed for more than a week since writing it up).  After waking up (on her own, that's generally the rule in our home), she pulled out her foam letter puzzle and dragged it all into the bathroom before I was even finished getting ready for the day.  So we went and practiced her letters - her initiative, though I was there to guide her, name the letters and sounds for her as she asked, and light-heartedly said yay or nay when she matched letters incorrectly.  (She does this herself as well, in any puzzle, she seems to enjoy purposely making an incorrect match, saying "tutaj?  nieeee!"  (Polish for "here? nooo!") until finally she makes the correct match.)

Next, she had remembered a science experiment - turned art project and asked to play with the ice again.  So I dutifully took out the large frozen ice in a bowl with old food coloring, gave her salt and more food coloring and she proceeded to salt the ice to get it to melt, added food coloring, and finally used a brush to smear everything together.  We then dumped the ice on the balcony (the whole project was an outdoor activity - bonus points for fresh air!) and proceeded to chip away at the ice to see what would happen.  Before putting the ice back in the fridge for a future time, we dumped the colorful water that had melted at the bottom of the bowl onto the balcony for one of Natalia's favorite activities - jumping in puddles!  (She calls it "charcos" from the Spanish version of Peppa Pig that she watches at times.)

Today, she started asking to watch Maya the Bee before she had a chance to get bored with any other activity, and I began to worry.  Feeling a little burned out anyway, I thought we had been good with limiting screen time and I could use the time to do some cleaning around the house.  She watched a bit of her favorite shows, in Polish and Spanish (so bonus points for language reinforcement), and about 45 minutes later just got up and found me to see what I was doing.  She took out some of her musical instruments and started playing.  She had naturally gotten bored with her shows and moved on to something else!

I took the opportunity to compensate for the screen time by taking the dogs for a walk.  We spent roughly the equivalent time she had watched her shows, outside.  Again, I had to remind myself to let her follow her curiosity, instead of insisting that she follow where I'm going and make no pit stops.  We ended up going by some tall dried up grass near a creek, she collected sticks and dried pine needles and piled them up for a "bonfire", and of course she shuffled her feet for a bit in a pile of fallen leaves.  She found a lone holly berry on a bush and asked about it.  When she gets older, we can take these lessons farther, actually looking up the answers to whatever we are curious about.

For now, for crying out loud, she's only 2!  Most of her peers will continue to wear diapers for another year, while she's been potty trained for six months, and going on the potty and/or toilet since 6 weeks old!  Let's count that as advanced learning already (and why not?  At this age, she learning the true basics of life!), instead of rushing to get to the next thing and never savoring the present moment.

I see already that the joy of home educating will be not so much that I get to teach my daughter, but that she gets to teach me!

Parenting Update

Still employing breastfeeding and cosleeping as part of my continued attachment parenting.  I feel very well connected to my daughter, and vice versa.  True, she does seem clingy at times and gets separation anxiety, but I resent the implication that (a) this is anything other than age-appropriate, and (b) that my parenting is "causing" it.  Some kids are more clingy than others, regardless of the style of parenting being employed.  If this is her natural tendency, then I'd be doing her a huge disservice by forcing premature independence on her.  I dread our separations as much as she does, but we do insist on them now and again.

Currently, we are working on incorporating more daddy-and-me time by easing into it.  Daddy has his own bucket of toys that only come out for when they play (yet to be implemented, really).  And we are trying to spend time on the floor playing all three of us, with he focus being on daddy interacting and me just being there to satisfy her attachment needs.  Once she becomes more and more comfortable playing with just daddy, I'll be able to start separating myself from the herd.  Currently, when I go take a shower, for instance, sometimes they play nice together, other times the only thing that soothes a tantrum is letting her watch Maya the Bee in Polish or Peppa Pig in Spanish.  I specify the languages because we specifically let her watch these two shows for a reason, but I'll go into that in a future multilingual/homeschooling update.

Gentle discipline has been going pretty well for the most part.  Primarily the idea is to prevent negative behaviors by anticipating Natalia's needs.  If she's already done something wrong, it's too late to then scold her for it.  Easier said than done.  One thing she does a lot if allowed to roam free is to dump the dogs' water bowl.  She loves water play and playing in the rain.  A gentle discipline approach is to anticipate that she will do this if we allow her unsupervised access to the water bowl, and keep the gate to the dogs' area closed when she's running around (as opposed to when we are playing in the bedroom/playroom, outside, etc.).

I've been frustrated that some of my tricks aren't doing the trick, so to speak.  I come down to her level and ask her directly to put away her blocks, for instance.  I suggest she choose if she wants to hand me the blocks and I put them in the box, or if I shall hand her the blocks and she put them in the box.  Sometimes this works, other times she lolligags anyway, or completely ignores me.  I find myself yelling when this happens, but this just makes her laugh for some reason.  So I'm rereading (for the third time, I believe) Elizabeth Pantley's "The No-Cry Discipline Solution" in an effort to add more options to my bag of tricks.

Finally, I am feeling a lot more comfortable about my role as a stay-at-home parent now that Natalia is getting bigger.  I see that it is taking a lot more planning and organizing to maximize her learning, fun, and socialization opportunities, plus juggle various household duties.  I do not feel like a mooch like I once did.  And I cannot imagine delegating this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of raising my daughter to someone else.  I don't care if this makes someone feel bad.  I'm tired of being made to feel bad for not working outside the home, so I'm just going to own it.  I don't necessarily advocate this lifestyle for all parents, as I know it's not an option for some, and for others the child actually would thrive more outside the home.  But for us, it's what works and is most fulfilling.

Tweaking Hodgepodge Parenting

I'd like to be more regular, though not monthly, in my updates on the various aspects of what brings me joy.  In looking over my introduction to the reinvention of Hodgepodge Parenting, I see a somewhat long list.  The spaces between the topics indicate how I envision grouping them, into four more manageable parts.  

attachment parenting
gentle discipline
stay-at-home parenting

raising a multilingual childhomeschooling

minimalism
green living


spirituality

General parenting encompasses my staying home, as this has a direct effect on how we parent, and our ability to reach various parenting goals.  Attachment parenting was the philosophy I heavily subscribed to throughout Natalia's first year of life and beyond.  But as she entered toddlerhood, gentle discipline began to seem more pertinent, though there are aspects of attachment parenting that I continue to ascribe to, especially breastfeeding and co-sleeping.

The educational aspect of our parenting warrants a separate section.  Raising a multilingual child and homeschooling both fall under this category.

Minimalism and green living sort of play off of each other.  I have to admit that my enthusiasm for this section and the next (spirituality) comes and goes.  But when it comes, I'm very into it.

The spirituality section started out having a non-religious label - spiritual independence/deism.  I have since gone on a Catholic women's retreat and decided, for the sake of not splitting hairs and to keep a consistency within the family, to embrace Catholicism once again.  As my confessor told me on retreat, God will meet me where I'm at.  Regardless of what I do and don't believe.

So with these four categories in mind, and without further ado, I shall get to updating!

Education and Language - update through August

Several months ago, we started having playdates with a neighborhood girl about Natalia's age.  Even though both her parents speak languages other than English, English is their native language and they are raising their daughter monolingual.  When the two girls were first hanging out together, I noticed that my daughter's friend was using two-word phrases already while Natalia was still in the single-word phase.  Of course, I knew not to compare the girls because Natalia was having to make sense of three oral languages with ASL thrown in for good measure, and I thought she was already well ahead of what I expected from what I had heard and braced myself for - namely that multilingual children are initially delayed in their language acquisition, though they catch up to their peers within a few years.  So I wasn't worried about Natalia, just noticing a difference in the girls' linguistic abilities. 

Then the little girl and her parents went on vacation for a few weeks, and by the time they got back three weeks later, Natalia had already caught up with her friend.  At 21 months, she uses two and even three word phrases, including "Mamusia cima" (Mamusia trzyma --> Mommy is holding), "Kalka pic miko" (Natalka pic mleko --> Natalia drink milk), and to various bugs, especially flies: "go away" (no translation or explanation needed!)  She also has started four-syllable words.  Her current favorite is "dinosaurio" (dinosaur).  As you can tell, there is a mix of Polish, English, and Spanish in her words.  She does not separate the languages yet, which is completely developmentally normal.  She understands requests, questions, and comments in all three languages, though the majority of her vocabulary is in Polish.  

Though I am glad that she uses a lot of Polish, since Polish is the language that is hardest to maintain in the United States, I do worry that her Spanish is not where we'd like it to be.  I stay home with her, so she hears Polish all day long, every day.  She only gets Spanish from her dad on the weekends and in the evenings for several hours.  But those times are actually diluted because when all three of us are together, Oscar and I speak English to each other.  

Furthermore, she has two tv shows that she watches on YouTube.  I am conflicted about this, since I know ideally she shouldn't be getting any screen time before age 2.  But she is very clingy and there are things I simply cannot get done unless she is enjoying her Maya the Bee or Peppa Pig  (like take a shower, for instance!).  The good thing is that she watches Maya the Bee in Polish, and Peppa Pig in Spanish, so we justify the shows because they reinforce the languages she hears from us.  She has learned various vocabulary from watching the shows that she may not have gotten from conversations with us.  Still, I am actively working on limiting her screen time nonetheless.

Finally, another concern I have is that since she speaks predominantly Polish, her dad sometimes asks me to translate what she's saying... though to be fair, I've had to ask Oscar what she's saying as well. One day she started stomping in a little puddle on our balcony and saying "charcos".  Well, I didn't know the word, and I was trying to figure out what it could be in Polish or English.  I asked Oscar, and then realized she was saying "puddle" in Spanish!  Then she expanded with "charcos de barro" (mud puddles), something she learned from watching Peppa Pig and her brother.

ASL was meant to be a bridge between all of the oral languages, however to be honest, it's been much harder to incorporate more and more signs since Oscar is the only one who actually uses it regularly at work.  Natalia does automatically sign certain words along with the oral words, which is a good sign, I suppose.  She is also open to learning new signs, but the baby signs books and videos I've found at the library so far have been mere review.  I think at this point, we need actual ASL.  Some of the signs are even not proper ASL but more like simplified home signs.  Most people don't intend to learn ASL when using baby signs with their kids.  Most people abandon signs altogether once the child starts to speak.  So we'll see if we'll be able to keep this up.

As a more general educational note, I've caught the inspiration bug for homeschooling again (it comes around every now and then), and have been planning a loose preschool structure to our days.  This is in its beginning stages, and I will share more in a future post.

Our Toddler's May

Here's our little one's May in photos....

At a restaurant restroom, found the plunger and proceeded to "clean" the toilet!

Swim classes have allowed her to start easing back into the bathtub, yay!

Every time.

Important phone call...

Finally!  Natalka has enough hair to put it up!

Our little global citizen.

Get your own pho!

Daddy helping Natalka love the water again.

Loving Tia Yoli's hammock

Notice lack of diaper under onsie.  Natalka is now completely diaper free at home!

She loved the beach this time.

walking with Dziadzio

You see correctly.  Natalka sitting on Bigos.  Bigos is like, "can I help you?"

I wasn't doing anything...

serious jock