During my time, children start to go to school at age 5 or 6. But nowadays, even 6 month old babies have schools designed for them. I used to disagree in sending kids to school at an early age because it might cause them to lose interest later on because of burnout having been exposed way too early. But when my son became a toddler, I had a change of heart. I soon learned that toddlers have very sharp minds and they absorb everything like a sponge. Also, since he is an only child, my son had very limited exposure to kids his age, and thus, he gets very uncomfortable when and shy, to the point of being scared around other people. Furthermore, we noticed that when he’s at home, he gets to watch a lot of television and gets exposed to noontime shows and telenovelas, which are not appropriate for his age. It is for these reasons that we decided that send our son to school at age 3.
Choosing a school for a 3 year old is a crucial decision. We do not want to put him in a traditional school wherein everything is structured and kids are asked to just sit still and listen. We immediately decided to send him to a non-traditional school, or for some, it is called progressive school. I’m not an expert in early child education so I will just use the term non-traditional school instead. The big difference in a non-traditional school is that children have a lot of hands-on experiences. Considering that they are a very young group, the curriculum seems like 2.5 hours of play for them but it is in fact, integrated with comprehension activities, science, social studies, values formation, math and of course, physical education.
My son’s first school year is about to end soon and I must say, sending him to school early was a wise decision. He became more confident and we have seen a great improvement in his social skills. He has also become more considerate of others, more independent and more inquisitive. He is also more articulate.
Parents nowadays are lucky that there are many schools, traditional or non-traditional, to choose from. All you have to do is browse the web to find the school nearest and most convenient to you.