The Power of Preschool

The other day in my daughter’s doctor’s waiting room, I read a fascinating study about the effectiveness of preschool in drastically cutting the costs of educating children over the course of their public education. I figured I’d jump up online and find it right away to refer a bunch of people I know to it, but alas: days get away from me and I can’t remember the title, just the gist. However, my quick web search turned up dozens of similar studies. Essentially, it can cost as much as 10 times less to educate children over the course of their 12 year public education, if we simply provide a preschool program for them. I found a press release from a CT politician citing similar figures:

“…national and state studies had shown that $1 in preschool spending saved up to $6 in future spending for special education, social services, and court and prison costs. He estimated that putting all of Connecticut’s children in preschool would save $425 million over the course of their lifetimes. “

And here I thought this was news! Turns out there’ve been dozens of studies, for decades, which prove that offering preschool not only saves the taxpayers educational dollars, but also lowers crime rates, and improves students’ lifelong prosperity outlook.

(Stephen Barnett, PhD from the National Institute of Early Childhood Research brings together much of this compelling research in a PowerPoint presentation you can find at http://nieer.org/docs/index.php?DocID=60)

But sigh. Like so many clearly demonstrated educational resources, taxpayers don’t want to pay now for something that might cost them less later. My town, which is one of those stereotypically well-off CT towns, has 20 preschool spots a year, 10 of which are for special needs kids (the other children primarily serve as role models for the others, meaning that the program doesn’t benefit them all that much). We have two preschools “in town”, one of which is Montessori and costs about $7-10 thousand dollars for half days during the school year only. The other is a few thousand for four hour days during the school year, and is considered quite good, but has a waiting list at least a year in advance. And we are lucky that around here, most moms can pay these prices and have the time (or nanny), to shuttle kids around to the odd-hour schedules–as neither has a childcare component that accommodates working parents.

Yet somehow I know the parents of these middle class & wealthy children will be the very same complaining about the tax-cost of educating the few kids who fall behind each year, as well as bemoaning the cultural cost of the area’s less educated kids, once they get a bit older and begin to impact other aspects of the workforce (and yes, crime rates).

While it is certainly important to begin by helping the neediest children–intellectually and economically–we must invest in all children, in providing all of them with the “head start” to begin their education at a time when they are most able to learn to value a lifetime of learning, in these preschool years.

Celebrity Moms

I was just leafing through the latest issue of my favorite guilty pleasure, People magazine.  In it are pictures of all of the celebrity new moms.  While I am very happy for the featured celebrities and their new ridiculously named offspring, I can’t help but hate them a little.  Here they are, just leaving the hospital with their new bundle of joy while wearing their prepregnancy size 00 jeans.  Ugh.  I had my first child four and a half years ago and I have yet to pull my pre-baby jeans over my knee caps.  I continue to hang on to them although I no longer pretend that I will ever wear them again, I keep them only to remind me of what once was.  Like privacy or free time, they are a thing of the past.

Ear Ache Head Ache

Our pediatrician is relocating. Just when my daughter doesn’t automatically cry at the site of her waiting room, she is closing the practice to follow her husband’s job to another state. Thus, we’ve switched over to a new doctor that my daughter says she doesn’t like. Well, I don’t like doctors as a rule myself, but I’m sure my girl will come around as this doctor is pretty nice.
We’d slated the four year check up as our first visit to the new doctor, but as life has its own schedule, my daughter got an earache just after the xmas break. As I was 50 miles away, my husband took our daughter in for the exam. Yep, infected ear. So as the doctor is writing out a prescription for antibiotics, my husband asks, “Is there any alternative?” The doctor looked up, surprised, and said that antibiotics aren’t even the recommended treatment for ear infections, and haven’t been for a couple of years now but since every parent expects the script, she always gives it to them.
Oh, this bothers me on so many levels: I am troubled by the fact that on the once-per-year occasion we took our daughter to her former pediatrician, she gave us antibiotics even though we told her we like to avoid them–never mentioning that they aren’t the currently accepted treatment for earaches. And I’m appalled that not only does this current doctor hand prescriptions out automatically, but that any doctor is giving out antibiotics when the American Academy of Pediatrics says they are not the preferred treatment for ear infections based on its 2004 guidelines. (more info: http://www.aap.org/healthtopics/earinfections.cfm) Okay, so parents have come to expect antibiotics… time to change their expectations and to save antibiotics for ailments they’ll actually treat, not add to the problem of resistant illnesses by over-prescribing them.
Yes, some parents will be a pain about it. Same ones that want antibiotics to “treat” a cold. But doctors are supposed to be the experts here, and help us parents make informed decisions. The path of least resistance isn’t going to get us very far.

Santa Is Watching….

For all of the rush and hassle that has become of the commercialism of the Holidays, I must say that Christmas is one of the best parts of having young children.  There is nothing like the shine in their eyes throughout December, or the magic that happens once you light the tree for the first time of the year.   The house is filled with the smells of holiday baking and every one is a little extra nice.  Well, maybe not that last part.  But that is where the real magic of the season lies.  Santa.  Santa is the greatest motivator of all time.  Tony Robbins has got nothing on Saint Nick.  The mere mention of the big guy (not Tony Robbins, though I hear he’s quite tall) can get my kids to do just about anything.  Not only does Santa motivate, he also disciplines.  If my kids are fighting, (hey when aren’t they) I just have to mention that Santa is watching.  But that’s when my four year old had to point out that he didn’t see Santa, so how could Santa see him.  That’s when I had to inform him that while he was at school, elves came to our house and installed hidden cameras that broadcast his actions at the North Pole.  These cameras are not only at our house, but also at restaurants, shopping centers and most other public locals.  Often, if rotten activity is detected, an elf calls our house (via the ringer button on the telephone) and points out this ill behavior and reminds us of the consequences.  True, this won’t work the other eleven months out of the year, but, for now, Big Brother Santa is watching.

Too Much Education Too Early?

I’ve had two recent discussions lately that centered around the idea that parents today push their little kids too hard and expect too much of them, too young. The first was with my mother and law. Now she is no fan of education to be sure. She hated school and, frankly, two of her three children are the picture of what happens when you denigrate education: They are both under-achievers who don’t read and also don’t see the value of an education. Her son was the one child who went against his parents’ wishes and left home for college. He is a successful testament to the power of education. My mother in law was arguing against full day kindergarten. In fact, she doesn’t think kids should be in preschool. “They start too young, they are just babies, why do they need to learn how to write when they are three?” “A full day is too much for a five year old! Poor little thing!” Uh, well, they learn to write when they are three so they can learn to read when they are four or five and um, a full day is okay for a six year old? But I took this whole discussion with a grain of salt; considering the source and so on.

However, today I had a very intelligent, educated, well-read friend (no kids and no desire; one of those wonderful aunt types) say that she feels every parent she meets today is pushing their kid to be a prodigy of sometime, putting them in rigorous tutoring programs in preschool and getting them every educational toy on the market to try to have the brightest kid around. I admit that this perspective surprised me, coming from her. I see all extremes, not a trend towards kids being under too much academic pressure. Heck, I met a mom the other day whose child didn’t learn to write his name until he got to kindergarten and now she’s worried he’s going to end up in remedial classes since it never occurred to her he’d need to know any of this stuff before getting to school.

I grew up in a house with no TV and parents who focused a good deal of attention on my academic ability, even before I was in any kind of school. I could read, write, and do basic addition when I got to kindergarten. I certainly aspire to my daughter doing the same (if not better, don’t we all want that?).  At the same time, I’d never considered more extreme measures to do it than those of my parents: notebooks, attention, learning through natural curiosity.

I invested in one of those first-grade writing notebooks with the big spacing and the colored lines as well as larger pencils that are easier for little hands to grasp. Sometimes I write things for her (Dear Santa…) and she traces my words with a highlighter. I also let my daughter choose a workbook from Boarders that has turned out to be something she asks to do almost every day. I follow the advise on the book and limit her to a couple of pages a day so that she ends wanting more and I wait for her to ask to do it; it isn’t an assignment. We’ve just finished the first one–Kumon’s book of Uppercase letters–and she chose the book of numbers 1-30 for her next workbook. Maybe it is more than she really needs to be doing right now. But I can see that she knows I value it, and she values the time and attention it gets her, so I’m as optimistic that it will pave the way for a love of learning as I am that it will help her better learn how to write her letters and numbers. I know from my own experience that there are the values of our parents that we embrace and those we reject… and that both help shape who we become.

Gender Fender Bender

I’m not what you’d call a girly-girl. Never have been. Also don’t often get confused with a guy; could be the plentiful hair & boob combo. I wear dresses occasionally and skirts mostly in the summer, when it is too hot for jeans. I work in a male-dominated area of publishing, I love gadgets, I snowboard… And my husband is also (not surprisingly since he married me) not all into “traditional” gender roles. His hair is longer (and curlier) than mine and he digs that we enjoy going to car shows together.

So why, oh why does my three year old not want to wear anything other than a dress and tights (leggings will not do!)? Why is it a punishment to ask her to wear jeans? Why did she want a bra so badly–ya, that’s right, I said a bra–that I had to go out and get her some lovely camisoles and tell her they are the little girl equivalent? The other day we were at Amanda’s and my daughter was wearing her favorite wee camisole that features Cinderella and I prompted her to show it to Amanda (hey, we’re all girls here) and after cooing that it was, in fact, adorable Amanda wisely wondered why on earth such a thing exists. Uh, because 3 year old girls who only get to watch about 30 minutes of TV a day, none of which includes the Bratz or MTV, are asking for them, that’s why!

The hyper-feminine child thing isn’t really a problem, I suppose. Except, perhaps, for weather- and certain activity-related issues. And I shouldn’t pout over the adorable cords or other pants I’ve bought, which sit idol in my daughter’s drawer. More than anything, I’m just baffled. We parents may think we influence these things, but I wonder how much we do. Perhaps I am influencing her in subtle ways or maybe it is all the positive feedback she gets from friends and strangers alike when she’s wearing a dress. In any case, there won’t be any pants under the tree this year; I got the word out to Santa that we’ve got a girly-girl in our house. Of course I just may be able to get her into snow pants to use that snowboard she asked Santa for…

Illuminating Sesame Street’s Dark Past

A friend of mine shot me a link to an article examining Sesame Street through a pair of today’s politically-correct glasses. Based around the release of the show’s original episodes on DVD, Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times writes about her surprise when viewing the first disc at being met with the warning: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” Say what?

Heffernan writes a splendidly tongue in cheek take on what is “wrong” with these old episodes, including such scandalous subjects as a lost lonely girl taking the hand of a strange man and going back to his house for milk & cookies with his wife while her mother is located; a character not only smoking a pipe, but then eating it; and of course, the biggest shock of all: the presence of grumpy characters! No “Prozacky Elmo” types, as she describes today’s painfully cheery regulars. Wow, how traumatic for kids to find out that once you could ask someone to help you find the way home, that some people smoke, and that (gasp), it might be okay to be grumpy once and a while, rather than medicate any unpleasantness away. Sunny Days indeed.

Night Terrors

We hit the playground for a play date yesterday and found out that my daughter’s pal, who is a boy almost exactly her age–3 years 9 months–has had nightmares for about five months. Nightmares on a variety of subjects that wake him (and the whole family) 5 out of 7 nights a week, and usually result in heading to bed with mom. She’s tried the “practical approach” i.e. there are no killer dragonflies in your room, see?; the “play along approach” i.e. okay, mommy has the magic dinosaur repellent spray and now they’re all gone… and a whole lot of other tactics besides, including high powered night lights, door open, white noise, etc…

Well, she asked for any advice I might have and frankly, I had little to offer. I suggested one trick we use when traveling: A protector stuffed animal that is posted at the foot of the bed as guard. Yet Night Terrors are quite different from “afraid of the dark” or your basic nightmares, which my girl has once and a while. Besides it also seems that, unfortunately, they are already well into a habit of an interrupted sleep cycle in which the lad gets to sleep with mom more often than not (dad can’t cope with that and heads for the guest room). So part of me fears it is now self perpetuating in that way. At the same time, she says he is truly terrified, shaking, crying, etc. so that it seems he is really afraid and that they may well be actual Night Terrors. What to do? I looked this up online and it seems that her pediatrician wasn’t just blowing her off: that the “treatment” is outgrowing them. One site I saw suggested waking the child before they normally happen. Eesh. I’d welcome any suggestions we could offer this sleep deprived family.

Epic Mealtime

We all treasure meals together. We are so lucky that we can almost always have breakfast and dinner together. Except for the newest thing: the never ending meal. My dear daughter takes about six weeks to consume a meal. She will eat one noodle at a time. She will claim an inability to operate cutlery, despite two years of evidence to the contrary. She will spend 10 minutes arranging the food around the cartoon images on the plate. Oh the dawdling! The only thing that prompts her to put any bites in her mouth at all is the threat of no cookie for dessert (yes, she always has room for that).

I have wondered if it is the opposite of the ravenous growth spurt eating cycle; if perhaps now she has slowed down in caloric needs and simply isn’t all that hungry. I doubt it, though, because she never says she’s full or not hungry. Maybe it is a new toddler control issue: How long can I keep my itching-to-clear-the-table mom trapped here? I even have one sort of bitter sweet possibility: Perhaps she’s simply trying to prolong what are often our only relaxed, fully focused on each other (and food, of course) times of day.   

Thanks for Making me Look Good, Kid

I often joke with my young assistants that I am  never one to take credit for their accomplishments at work because the fact is: When they look good, I look good. I am a very shallow person. I want to look good. Because I am a 40-year-old-workaholic with a toddler, this will no longer be manifested physically. So I take the self esteem builders where I can get ’em.

My daughter–like every toddler before her, and probably like every one yet to come– resists me on issues from the mundane (what to wear) to the obscure (“don’t say that word, mommy” uh, okay, but what’s wrong with the word litigious? “just don’t say it!). And while she is what most moms call “a good eater,” she develops random loathings for once-loved foods, and control issues with what textures and tastes are acceptable at any moment (though thankfully, she is drinking water again).

So it was that I went to Thanksgiving day at my in-laws with trepidation. Nothing like a child that refuses to eat orange food, or mashed food, or whatever in front of your husband’s parents, right? As we sat down, and I anxiously gulped my second Vodka gimlet, my dear girl took her seat across from me with daddy, as the dishes began to be passed. Okay, despite the fact that she’d eaten two Brussels sprouts earlier at home, she refused to take any on her plate. Gulp. But then she warmed to scalloped potatoes, portabella ravioli, pine nut stuffing, turnips, Tofurky, and every other item that passed before her! And she cleaned her plate! Then, in the piece de resistance, Grandpa offered her the cranberry sauce I’d made for just him and I (as no one else eats it in that familial branch)–and she tried it… and liked it! After that, she ate the most bacteria-laden blue cheese I have ever seen!

Oh, my sweet girl, I shall strive to be more patient at breakfast when you suddenly want me to strain the seeds out of your raspberry yogurt or refuse a strawberry that you feel has displeasing proportions. For you, my girl, made me so very proud (and yes, thankful) on Thanksgiving Day.