Does Preschool change a child's personality/behavior permenantly?

[The Duchess]

In the past few months I have seriously been considering educating my children at home, I am 95% to a "yes" and just giving myself more thinking time. My DH is 100% behind whatever decision I make.

What I am struggling with is the fact that I sent my eldest DD off to preschool a few weeks before she turned 3. (Now it seems so incredibly young). She was actually placed in a young 4s class because she was so social, confident etc. She has now completed 2 years of preschool. What I am finding hard are behaviors that she picked up at Prechool. She now will talk in sentences punctuated with "like", "So if I ,like, go there, then he would, like, want to go with me." etc. And she has picked up all these mannerisms and facial expressions that I thought were the province of Valleygirl Teenagers not 4 and 5 yr olds.

I feel somewhat depressed as I worry that her personality has been changed by these experiences. At the time I thought I was doing a positive thing sending her off to preschool as she loved to socialise and her sister was four months old and needed a lot of attention from me.

I guess I am looking for reassurance that I still have my lovely, lively girl and being at home with me she will gradually abandon all the faddish stuff. She has been with me all summer and it does seem to drop away, but if she socializes with kids her age it triggers all the same behavior again. Even when we are with homeschooled friends who don't talk in that way. I definitely will not be sending her younger sister to preschool.

[meemee]

oh dear. because i work ft my dd is in ps - her choice not mine. even before she went there she has always been picking up mannerisms and types of speech from everyone around her. and she has been slowly evolving. some of it is her temperament too. but they all go away to be replaced with something else. so nothing is permanent except a traumatising experience or a v. pleasant one in memory.

[flyingspaghettimama]

My daughter does this as well - but she'll also pick things up from movies, friends, etc. I agree with meemee, she'll just copy what she sees, so if you bring her home, a lot of that behavior will decrease. A lot of adults do the same things (i.e. if your friends use a new word, you might as well). It's also a good opportunity to talk about how your family does things and how other people might.

My daughter went to a half-day summer camp this week and came back with a whole host of new eye-rolling (which we'd already talked about earlier in the year and she HAD stopped).

[Linda on the move]

I think it will fade with time. She's really little -- nothing is set in stone. For 2 years she has been taught that is the way to talk to kids, so it will take time for it go away, but it will.

[m&m]

Some things will stop (like the types of words, and mannerisms) - some things will take a lot longer to fade away (like raising your hand, or jumping at a bell, or crossing your legs and having to say what the teacher said "criss-cross apple sauce"...) Annoying, but after time they too will diminish.

It is all part of behaviour modification. if it is rewarded, it continues (social acceptance is a huge reward).

Also school and preschool has a lot of rules and such for its class that just can't apply to real life. It does confuse the kids who leave - but they do learn quickly to adapt.

In my case, all my dd problems have also disappeared dues to lessening of stress. So that was a bonus I didn't even anticipate. And in only 2 weeks too!

[The Duchess]

Thank you for your replies, I feel better now I got that off my chest. I think I am probably overreacting as all these behaviors diminish the longer she is at home. Also her younger sister has not picked any of it up from her so that helps neutralize some of it I think. I was just amzed at how she soaked up every social nuance at preschool, I helps me see clearly how peer dominant this type of "socialization" is even at the youngest ages.