preschool vs daycare

[dachshund mom]

Can someone explain the difference between daycare, preschool, and mother's day out?

I thought preschool was only for 4-5 year olds in the year before kindergarden, and was optional, but I saw a friend post on facebook that her just turned 2 year old was going. She had a backpack and the mom posted "first day of school sniff sniff". I read a post about a 14 month old in preschool.

And the deep down worry, is my kid going to be behind when she starts off with kindergarden at 5?

[hollytheteacher]

I work at a preschool. Technically preschool is an age group (four and five year old kids), however, our school is for age 2-6 and models the reggio-emila approach with play-based learning. We are a preschool because our teachers are professional (some are licensed others are not but have a Masters' Degree or higher), we are NAEYC accredited etc. We are multi-age so the children all learn together, at their own pace, following their own paths and interests. The teachers continue professional development their whole careers.

I would consider a place a "daycare" if it was run by someone doing it for money, not really being involved with the children, maxing out ratios, etc. "daycare" is kind of an icky word since it implies taking care of "days" instead of children. So really, I think the word "daycare" should be eliminated from our vocabulary. lol

[Tigerchild]

NAEYC accredits daycares too, so I don't think accreditation alone makes a preschool.

Preschool tends to have a specific learning program for school readiness with specific targets. Daycare may very well have a preschool program incorporated into it, but it's also structured to be available to meet time needs in addition. So you can have preschool in daycare/childcare, some people USE preschool for daycare/childcare. I don't see it as a good/bad dichotomy between the two, they're serving two different purposes that have a lot of overlap. Also, many states legally define a preschool program as one where all children must be toilet trained (and thus don't have to pass licensing standards for diapering). In many areas it's a slightly different licensing process for the preschool rooms (even if they are in the same facility as other classrooms that must meet Dept. of Health standards for diapering). So that is also why some programs have a hard rule about toilet training--if they didn't, they'd have to get DoH approval/inspection and follow rules for having enough diapering stations and supplies for the number of kids in their facility.

Mother's Day Out are more like childcare, but on a very short term basis (like one morning a month or whatever) and many times staffed as a ministry/charitable activity by a sponsoring organization. Most childcare centers and home based childcare has regular operating hours longer than a couple of hours, are required to be licensed by the state. MDOs, because of their usual sponsoring umbrella organization may not need to be licensed or meet those standards, though most insurance companies are going to make them at least do the state patrol test for their workers.

The best daycare/childcare facilities often have special programs to help staff get their AA degrees, require ongoing professional training (many states require this as well), and many have teachers with 4 year degrees. I had a toddler classroom in a NAEYC accredited daycare once upon a time, I had a bachelors in Family and Child Development and all staff had 4 professional development inservice days per year plus were also reimbursed for evening continuing ed classes if we chose to take them. I have also taught at a preschool where there was no requirements for degrees, no reimbursment, no mention of continuing ed aside from correspondance courses/1xyearly courses mandated by the state, ect.

So the lines, even with the professionalism of the staff, can be highly variable/blurred between the two. At least in my experience.

But anyway, OP...no, your daughter will not be behind in K most likely unless it's a private school or something where they had the expectation that you start from toddlerdom up (there are some of those out there). Especially if you live in a diverse area, there were be kids in your daughter's K class from different socioeconomic background and probably some english language learners in there too--there is almost always a very wide spectrum of kids at thet beginning of Kindy.

[lindberg99]

There was a whole big thread on the preschool/daycare language issue a little while ago. Here it is if you want to read it OP...

http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1135124

And I wouldn't worry that your child will be behind in kindergarten if you don't send her to preschool. Do you have an older child or are you worrying about your March baby?

ETA: I have no idea how I got a thumbs up at the top of my post!

[apple_dumpling]

mom's morning out is usually for 2 year olds, primarily for socialization, IMO...

preschool around here starts at age 3 (potty trained) but only at a private/church based/etc. type school. Our public school doesn't start until Kindergarten, which is a FULL day program.

I started dd in preschool at 3 - it was 2 days a week, from 9:30-12. This year she is in pre-K (the same church based private school) from 9:30-12, M-F Next year she'll start public K, which is from 8:30-3 every day. Unfortunately, that is what it is... I can't change the way our county runs their public K program.

For me, it wasn't so much the 'academic' progress that I was worried about. I'm a firm believer that kids will learn in their own time and that pushing them only causes strife down the road (for my little one it does anyway! LOL ) she *is* an only child for now, and I wanted her to A: have more socialization opportunities with like-minded kids/moms. Her school is actually pretty AP - they use gentle discipline as much as possible, very calm, nurturing environment. and B: give her a chance to begin to adapt to the 'school routine' that is going to be inevitable down the pike... I thought the progression from 2 days, to 5 half days, to 5 full days was as 'gentle' as I could make it. My daughter would NOT have done well to go from a daycare/home environment, no matter how scheduled, to a full day school environment. I just know that would be bad for her personality. So far, she has eased into it ok. And the beauty with pre-K this year is that yes, we do pay for it every month, but because it is not required by our county (they only provide it for economically disadvantaged/learning disabled students) if she REALLY doesn't want to go to school one day, we'll sit down and talk about it beforehand. she's stayed home a few days already simply because her little circuits were just overloaded. Now, that isn't an option next year - but I feel confident that as the year goes on, she'll progress enough in that direction to handle it.

the only other option, besides continuing a MUCH more expensive private education route (catholic or montessori - the program she is in now does not do K) is to homeschool, which would not work for either of us. I've considered it many times, and it just isn't going to be an option unless it becomes necessary due to other circumstances.

To be quite honest, I wouldn't use daycare unless I *needed* daycare - i.e. if I was working. There are lots of programs you can get your toddler/preschooler into for socialization type stuff if you don't want to go the 'school' route... my dd never went to daycare because I was a SAHM, but I did decide to do the school route with her since it seemed like a natural progression - and not too rigid.

[apple_dumpling]

OP my post is kind of muddled, it's late here... LOL To address your second concern, I really doubt your child will be behind for K just because she doesn't go to 'school' of any sort before then. My daughter learned most of her skills at home, school just helps to reinforce them I suppose.

MY biggest issue with being 'ready' for K is the maturity/energy factor, since we have all day K here. I didn't think that just letting her wait for K was a good idea because it would be such a HUGE transition for her. If we had half-day K here, I might have done things differently.

[yogachick79]

Like one of the OPs, our preschools are all private and start at age 3 and run through age 5 (depending on birth date cutoff for Kindy). Our son is currently in preschool, PK3, three half days per week. While a small bit of our reasoning was for a structured learning experience, like others said it was also for structured socialization and classroom behavior. He is LOVING it, and because he misses the cutoff date for turning 5 by one day, he will most likely be in PK4 (will be just 5 at the time) next year. Kindy is a full day deal here, 9:00-3:30.

We also have something called "Nursery School" which starts around two and describes more of what you were talking about with younger children. They won't take any child under 2 years of age and DO have a preschool curriculum for the other children, but they do not call themselves a preschool.

Then there are your typical daycares that tout having preschool curriculum but I have yet to see one actually execute it successfully (again, this is just around here, but our daycare centers, yes NAEYC accredited, are a big bunch of crap).