All the other 3 year olds are in preschool

Perhaps I miswrote my first post. The main aggression I care about is his assaults on his little sister. We believe they stem from her unexpected adoption. One minute we were sitting in a park taking pictures of him. 4 hours later I was nursing our unexpected baby. We told him we would be "taking care of her" since it would be a couple months before the birthfather's rights were terminated. The roughness towards her started around the same time we told him we would be adopting her. We think his aggression towards her is a sibling rivalry issue. It must stop because it is unfair to her that she be pinched, pushed, hit, etc. (Fortunately we've gotten some help and the shaking and rapid fire hitting has stopped.)

So his playing rough with other boys is fine. That's how boys play. All the boys going to pre-school do not play with weapons. The boys not going to pre-school do play with weapons.

I'm not going to debate the weapon toys thing here. There are lots of ways to play rough without toy guns. It is our choice and that is the end of the topic.

The problems we had yesterday were with "quiet" play. He wasn't able to play creatively with his friend. Much of that may be his controlling personality. Whatever it is, he needs friends his age that don't go to school.

When the boys went down to our "wild" room, he played well. It's a room filled with lots and lots of foam. There's a desk they can jump off of and balls they can throw at each other. They took turns pushing each other off the desk. When one of them would jump without being pushed, the other yelled, "you cheated." With the rough stuff he does great. I didn't even mind when they were wrestling and play slapping, though the other mom did so she stopped that, which I respected.

I did post for playdates on our local homeschooling site and have set up a playdate with a homeschooled boy that does not play with weapons. Hopefully they will get along.

I guess I posted here partly as a vent and partly because there has to be other unschoolers who have been in our circumstance. I know we go against the grain of the unschooling world when it comes to weapon toys. I recently read a poll and about half of parents do not allow weapon play. Unfortunately for us it feels like most of those parents send their kids to school.

I do want to thank everyone for their thoughts. I looked at a couple of the articles suggested. I just happen to make a different choice.

Thanks again for the thoughts.

We ended up enrolling our son in preschool. I am still grieving this except that he is so excited about it. Yesterday we went to "look" at the school. I'd previously researched schools in case I ever needed to return to work. I liked this one a lot so was quite pleased that they had an opening for us at this time.

Five minutes after setting foot on school soil, he was having fun exploring. When we got home I asked him what he thought of school and he said, "It's good." We bought a pink lunchbox, water bottle and pink hat yesterday and he pro-actively packed his lunch box last night. At 5:30 this morning he said, "I've got to get ready for school."

We have the good fortune that, of the three best pre-schools in our city, one is only 3 blocks from our house. So this morning he rode his bike and I pushed the stroller and we went to school. We were only going to spend a couple hours there, but he was having such a good time that we stayed the full 4 hours. I even stepped outside the classroom for most of it and the only time he looked for me was when he wanted to show me something he made.

He is not pleased that I will be leaving him there without me next week, but I know he will get over that as quickly as he did with the babysitter. He'll be going 4 days a week. After he's been going for a couple weeks and he's established, I have no problem with him missing school if we have other activities going on with our playgroup with MDC or anyone else. The whole point of preschool is to give him playmates not limit his world.

This school is great. They play outside freeplay for an hour, have an hour of activities that are determined by the kids' interests (yesterday was shaving cream, today was cutting with scissors and holding the guinea pig,) have another hour of freeplay outdoors, then go in for lunch. Then he goes home.

Although the school policy is that weapon play is not allowed, the teachers said that they don't "ban" such play. Rather they talk with the kids about how we want to treat other people. My son does not know about superheroes or weapons. I am sad someone is going to teach him those things. However, I had to be practical. He NEEDED friends and I could either let him learn about weapons in an environment where he would be taught about them or I could throw him to the wilds of the homeschooling groups where I have seen no guidance on weapons. (I know several families that avoid the homeschooling park days because of the excessive weapon play.) This is my only concern with the school.

I rationalize to myself that unschooling is about giving our children choices. He is clearly very excited about going to preschool. If he weren't, we would re-examine it, but he is leading the way here. My concern is he's going to want to do this for a couple years. Then, when it comes time for kindergarten, he's going to assume it's the same as preschool and it's not. Our school district is so bad we won't let him go there. But, we'll face that when the time comes.

I always thought that the "activity" playdates were an avenue to at-home playdates. You get to know the other family a bit on neutral territory, and then if you all hit it off, you invite people over.

It is kind of funny on the one hand to see parents complaining that all of their kids' potential playmates are at preschool, because at a homeschooling mom to an older elementary school aged child, it gets a little frustrating to go to various homeschooling events and activities, and find that the overwhelming majority of children present, are 3 and 4.

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I wish that had worked for me, but it didn't. All the friends we kept meeting through activities have moved on or group dynamics are different for us.

The homeschooling groups here are all older. We did an open gym for homeschoolers and the kids were all so much older than when we go to regular open gym.

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Could you try to arrange playdates and cultivate friendships with these families then?

(Even if you've found that preschool is a good current fit for your needs, it would still be useful to establish relationships with other homeschooling families with compatible values. It could be particularly helpful when your son doesn't go to kindergarten, as he'll know and be friends with other homeschoolers and thus not feel like the only kid not going to school, eh?)

I see that you have now chosen preschool. That's sort of interesting to
me because I would feel like I had far less control over what is around
my children if I had them in any sort of school, than if I were nearby to
help "moderate" any issues that might come up, that are against my
values. Hopefully you will be very happy with your choice.

I was going to suggest that you host playgroups at your house (not just
playdates) where you invite everyone in your homeschool group, or 3 or
4 other homeschools moms to come for a playgroup. Since it would be at
your home and you do not have any weapon toys, I would think that you
would find that other sorts of play would dominate. You could also add
to the end of your playgroup invitation that you are have a "no weapons
home, for both children and adults." (assuming you have no guns in your
house)

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I feel an extreme need to comment on this. I'm shocked that you think
that just because you know a couple-few unschooling families who allow
weapon play for their 3 year olds, that avoiding-weapon-toys is something
you think is "against the grain of the unschooling world."

Okay, give me a moment... we are also unschoolers and had no weapon
toys in our house for a very long time. I think when my son was 8, he got
his first plastic knight sword and shield as a gift. I know plenty of
homeschoolers and unschoolers who did the same. Actually, it was pretty
rare that we would run into weapon toys at playdates even when we were
in MOMS Club (along with all sorts of different types of parenting and such,
very eclectic group from extremely mainstream to hippie, etc.), and then
later once we were active in the homeschool group.

I must admit though, I'm shocked that you allow such violent play for your
3 year old. It makes me less surprised that he engages in that violent play
around and with his sister, though, I must admit. How can a 3 year old
differentiate between allowed violent play and not-allowed violent play?
Instead, perhaps if you told him, "Sorry, sweetie, violent play can hurt
someone and we don't want it in our house" and discourage it all the time,
then it would be easier to get him to stop doing it to his sister.

I remember my husband used to let the children climb on him, jump on
him and lightly wrestle with him when they were babies/toddlers while he
read their bedtime stories to them, UNTIL one day they hurt him, and he
realized it was a bad idea to allow or encourage ANY sort of rough play.
It was never something I allowed (always gently discouraged), but I didn't
police his story times, obviously. lol

When my children have gotten testy (both now when they are 8 and 10,
and back when they were toddlers/preschoolers), I'd suggest for them to
run around the tree in our yard a bunch of times, or I'd take them to the
playground to let off some steam. I have always found that they have
played more gently after a bout of running around outside. Perhaps the
next time you have that one child over that your son wrestled with, you
could start the playdate by having the children run around outside a bit
first, to blow off that extra steam.

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My experiences tend to be the opposite. The
parents who homeschool/unschool that I know tend to be crunchier and
more conscious of keeping their children peaceful than the ones who sent
their children away to school. I don't think it's a valid generalization
though. It just happens to be a case of who you know and the types of
people you might gravitate towards to cultivate relationships, in addition
to the randomness of life.

We went through something very similar with my oldest when he was your son's age. I hope the school goes well for him and you!

I was lucky enough to have a terrific preschool up the street from me, know the owner really well, and all her employees. It was play based and very close to Montessori, where the kids were encouraged to do things themselves and had their choices for what their daily activities would be, as well as circle time (there were small sinks for the kids to wash in, rules about cleaning up their projects themselves, play items the could get out and use at will, etc).

This was a terrific school, as most preschools go. I found that my son enjoyed his first week or so there, and that after a little while, he started to cling to me and not want to be dropped off every other day for the 1 1/2 hourse I was starting with him.

The owner offered to let me stay and help to get him comfortable, even counting my help as part of his paid tuition (she was so nice!). I tried that, and he would still prefer me to be with him. He was comfortable running and playing, but didn't want me to not be there. That was hard for me, though, as I wanted to drop him off so I could get a break and I had his baby brother with me.

At that point, the owner let me in on a little secret: The kids who stayed and enjoyed preschool the most were not the kids, like my son at 3.5, who came a few days a week for 2 hours at a time. The ones *who did best * (ie: separated from their parents) came most days of the week for more hours. Like daycare. Hm.

It was then that the little red flag went up before my eyes and I realized that the only way this was going to go was for my son to detach from me as his Mom, and I KNEW he wasn't ready for it after those weeks of trying. (Ever read "Hold Onto Your Kids"?)

So I made a decision, and withdrew him.

A few weeks later, a friend from church, who also lived in the same condo complex as me, asked if I might be interested in joining a small, at-home preschool co-op with two other moms and her. I said I'd meet them and think about it. There were, with my son included, two boys and two girls in the group and the other mothers were quite friendly. We ended up joining this little group, and rotated hosting one day a week, and eventually two days, at our homes.

I had to make small concessions: the other mothers wanted to get their kids "ready for school", so we based lessons on letters of the alphabet, but luckily, I could be very relaxed with it (as an unschooler) and do lots of playtime and lessons that were fun, not lie little school lectures. I also learned a lot of useful things from this experience and grew in my confidence to homeschool and skills in making things happen for my family.

My son made friends (!) and I got a break during the week, and most importantly, our connection remained intact.

Since that first at-home co-op, I went on to form two others for my oldest son and that worked very well for him. I recently tried to form a *playgroup* and even if I told my second son, who is now 4, that I was staying, he refused to go. I will still host the other kids at our house so he can have friends and get used to being around other kids, but I can see he is not comfortable being away from me out of our home and I am choosing to honor him and our connection and not drop him off at others' homes. I know in time, he may well grow out of this need to be with me like he does now and later will have plenty of other social opportunities away from me and home.

If you are serious about homeschooling, at some point you may have to come to terms with not only seeking out support in the forms of groups, but being proactive and creating something of your own.

When kindergarten times comes around for kids your son's age, you'll be faced with the same decision you were faced with this year. Maybe then you'll find more homeschoolers his age and find ones to connect with? Maybe you'll choose to send him to school?

YMMV as far as using anything from my experience that I shared, and I am sure you know your child best and are capable of making the choices that best suit him and his unique personality. Good luck with this stage of your relationship

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For the ones still around, we are doing this. Most of the kids that haven't moved he doesn't play with. There used to be a large group who stayed after storytime to play. His friends all moved away.

We just met a new family and will play on the playground before story time. I'm hoping this will lead to a long term friendship.

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This is based on my real life experience of asking the local unschooling group if there is anyone who would like to form a parkday without weapons and I got rather negative responses (and not one person said they would be interested.) It is also based on long weapon debates I've seen in this forum and in the local mdc playgroup we belong to.

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This is a good point and something I hadn't considered.

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I'm actually very pleased with how the teachers moderate events. To be honest, I am SO burned out that I have an edge to my voice more than I like. Before the baby came, I was so pleased with how gently I could talk to my son. That is now a much less frequent event than it used to be. I am hoping that by having a bit of a break (and from watching the role modeling of the teachers) that I can get my gentleness back.

I am not pleased that we chose pre-school, but I am desperate. I need help and I cannot find it. I have offered many, many times to start a pre-school art group. Everyone says they're interested and no one shows up. We live in Arizona and over the summer when it was so hot everyone in our playgroup hibernated. I have scoured storytime, parks and rec, music classes, etc. for playmates. I am not someone who easily makes friends. Yet since my son was born I have made so many friends (around 20) for him (and me) and most have moved away (transient town) or are now going to preschool. I am often on the verge of tears because I cannot find friends for my son.

Combine this with general mom burn out. We were sitting in the park having a normal day when we got a phone call. Four hours later I was nursing a baby I'd never heard of before. Two days later my husband went back to work and I was left trying to build a milk supply while tandem nursing. The lactation consultant said, "Pump, pump, pump." Yeah, right. Nursing 16 times a day, caring for a toddler and a newborn without a single friend offering any help. When was I supposed to pump? So when I had to supplement my baby, can you imagine the guilt because I couldn't find time to pump? Then came the rough play with the baby and everyone said it was normal, but it sure didn't seem normal. Now all my son's friends have vanished from his life and I can't find him more and I feel like a total failure that I can't do it by myself.

I don't want him to go to pre-school, but we have a problem I have not been able to solve. I have got to keep my baby safe and address my son's need for playmates.

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I consider this an experiment. If he does well with it, we'll continue. If he can't get comfortable with it, we'll withdraw him. If nothing else, if we even do this for a month, it might give me the psychological break I need. My baby has never been a good napper. I'm lucky if I get 20 kid-free minutes every couple weeks (unless I stay up after everyone's in bed at 9:30.) My house is a mess and my finances, which used to be impeccably managed, now get a quick going over every couple months.

If he does end up doing okay without me, I still plan to keep him home on days when other events are happening. I consider preschool another activity. Some days we go to the botanical gardens with friends. Other days, when nothing is happening, we go to preschool. He has said he doesn't want me to leave him there. That breaks my heart. However, he says the same thing about me leaving him home with his dad while I go have two hours for myself every few weeks. He's got to have SOME ability to be away from me or I will go stark raving mad.

This isn't a perfect solution. But like I said before, I am desperate. When I posted on both homeschooling websites for a preschool playdate (I didn't even mention weapons) only one person responded. We are in the process of building a friendship with them.

The one thing that makes it better for me to send him is how much he has enjoyed being there. On Friday we stayed the full four hours (instead of the 2 I'd planned) because he was having so much fun. I sat outside on the playground with the baby most of that time. He only looked for me twice during indoor time. Once to show me something he'd made and once towards the end of the day. He talks very positively about it. Today he was singing a song he clearly learned there.

Boy, do I hear you about needing that break! When I had a 3 year old and a baby...there was no doubt about it, I needed time away so I could stay sane! It is so intense being with and nurturing little ones day and night!

The way you described your son's enthusiasm about being at the preschool must be heartening for you. I do hope this works well for you, as it sounds like making connections with other like-minded families is not forthcoming right now. Best wishes