Ethan's Going to School

Ethan's now 30 months. Next month he will be going to toddler school. It was one of the most crucial decisions that we made this year.

I was not a fan of early childhood education. I thought that kids should be taught first by their parents at home and sent to school at age of around 3 or 4. And we tried to do the things that other parents do. Unfortunately, the results are not the same.

The downside of comparing your kid with other kids of the same age is that if your kid lags behind in some aspects, you become worried. It may be a good thing, though, because sometimes you catch some problems you otherwise would not have. That's what happened to me. When my forum mates with kids around the same age as Ethan started to say that their kids are already speaking in straight phrases or sentences, I became worried. My Ethan was still at the single word stage, and it was not even a lot of words. We had him evaluated, and true enough, he does have a slight expressive speech delay. Because of this, we did a 2 pronged approach and brought him to a speech therapist AND sent him to a toddler school within the vicinity for 6 weeks of the summer, just to see how things work out.

It worked! His learning accelerated! He learned a lot more words and is already starting to use phrases. He learned to follow instructions. He learned to deal with other children his age. He learned to wait his turn. He is still continuing speech therapy once a week but even his therapist noted that he has improved greatly! More importantly, he LOVED school. He actually looked forward to it. When we have to wake him up, I just have to say, "Ethan, you have to get up or you'll be late for school" and he won't linger in bed. He is a very slow eater but just tell him that he will be late for school and he will eat faster!

Separation anxiety? After maybe 2 weeks, he has ceased to cling to us. WE are the ones having separation anxiety as his dad and/or I hover around his classroom trying to peer in and see what he's doing.

It is because of all of these that made us decide to send him to school this June. He'll be going to the same school he went to during the summer. He'll be having the same classmates and the same teacher. And he's learning that learning is fun!

As to what school I'm sending him and why I chose that school, I've detailed them here.
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This is my own entry to PPBC 2nd edition.