I guess I am just venting a bit today.
I have spent a bunch of time lately trying to research where to take Lincoln for preschool, starting in September/late August. I spent a good part of the day out taking Lincoln with me to tour some of the areas best preschools, with both of us dressed up nicely for the occasion. Dressed to impress, I suppose. There are some really great ones I may have to rule out because of what I think is really high pricing (IT'S JUST PRESCHOOL FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!) and/or location. He'll just go for 2 1/2-3 hours twice a week. Lincoln is really excited to go to school to learn about letters and numbers and play with friends and look at books.
But they all have one thing in common. It would be extremely inconvenient for the teacher(s) to take time from lessons to worry about these kids having 'accidents' and changing them, so they can't do it. None of the preschools even have changing facilities in the bathroom, because they expect the children to be wearing underpants. Even the small in-home preschool my neighbor is running where most of the kids in the ward attend, she told me she likes the 3 year olds to be mostly or all the way trained but she can 'deal with the occasional accident.'
I COMPLETELY understand this. I am presently a Sunbeams teacher, so I get it. If there is an accident or just a diaper incident from non-potty trained kids during my class, I just go get the parents too. I don't change anybody but Linc. And holding it for 2 hours is not a lot to expect from the 3 and 4 year old class.
It seems like Linc's birthday is sneaking up on me. It's already June, and next month he'll be 3. Then the next month will be August, and late in that month he'll be able to start preschool. If and only if he can be better then he is at using the toilet. Grrr.
Let me just say, my son is amazing. I know almost every parent is totally in love with their child and thinks they are raising the next Einstein as soon as they roll over for the first time.... but I am really impressed with how much he does now. He talks a LOT, knows a lot of colors, and recognizes every letter in the alphabet. He also can count to 20, and recognizes numbers up to.... around 25, something like that. And he can read a couple words. He spells out and then reads the words,"Lincoln", "Stop" and "Fire" (there's a silly story w/that one.)
I think that's really good for his age! I'm proud of him, I think he's really smart. I just wish, esp. after investigating the preschools, that he'd focus that energy into using the toilet instead of these prereading skills. Thats what the preschools want to TEACH him, not expect him to already know, so I think he may be a bit ahead of his peers when he gets into a class. If he can ever get into one.
I'll probably get some advice of how if I send him to a daycare that is also a preschool they won't have that rule, since they take in babies and infants and don't have diaper rules. But if I wanted my son in a daycare facility, I would have started putting him in one long ago and then I could have been contributing to the household income all this time. No, what I want is a good focused academics based educational environment for him, and also socialization with lots of kids his age. I've found several good ones.
I'm just gonna pray he is ready to enter into one of those by September. And diligently try even harder to keep him dry all the time. Pray for me and for Lincoln! And if you have time you can leave a comment if you have some suggestions or something.
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3 comments:
Well, I know potty training is different for every kid. Some things that work with some kids don't work with others. But I'll tell you what worked for Hyrum. He LOVED the movie Cars at the time, so we got him Cars underwear (maybe for Linc, you should try Thomas) and just ditched the pullups/diapers. We knew it was going to be messier when he did have an accident, but it was a chance we had to take. We made a big deal out of the underwear, and he was so thrilled to wear it. He had one major mess in his underwear and was so sad that he had gotten his Cars underwear dirty that he never had an accident (except for random accidents) from that day forward.
We also had a potty music video that he watched at least once a day. The songs were dumb and cheesy and were more annoying than the usual Barney song when they got stuck in my head, but he really loved it. It just seemed to make it something fun for him and kept the idea fresh in his mind all day.
Update: It's going better! I'll just put a post up about it soon, when the process seems more "done". But we ARE in process! That's improvement.
Yeah. Jay told you how we did ours, already. We made it a big thing to have him put on undewear of his own. We did use pull-ups, but only at night so he could still take them down when they had to go to the bathroom.
Also, I'm not sur why we did this, but we avoided the whole "kiddies" toilet thing. We made myson use the adult toilet just like mom and dad do. I'm not positive, but i think it made him feel older than before and bigger to use something mom and dad use (or.. more likely, we were just lazier)
As far as the potty party, it's a great idea if you are extremely positive parents who'd children react well to praise and rewards. But I'll tell you now, despite what the books they sell say, it's not for everyone/child.
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