Ask Dr. Ada: Choosing a Preschool
Dear Dr. Ada:
We have just moved to a new area and are investigating preschools for our 4-year-old daughter. All of the preschools that we’ve encountered so far seem to have a strong academic emphasis, which worries us….. We need to find one that is more play oriented, so we’re considering just hiring an at-home nanny, but we worry that then she won’t have any playtime with other kids…
Response:
It is important for your 4-year-old daughter to have playtime experience with other kids. Preschool may not be absolutely necessary for a 4-year-old child if she gets enough stimulation at home, but playtime with other children her age is an absolute necessity. I think you worry too much about an academic preschool program. All these programs also provide unstructured time for play. My advice to you is to take your daughter along for a visit to some of these programs, and observe how she reacts to the place, and if she would like to go there every day.
Dr. Ada Anbar
Ada Anbar holds a Ph.D. in Early Childhood Education from the University at Buffalo, and, after a 40-year teaching career, is now a full-time writer.
She is passionate about children and their mothers and likes to reduce the amount of stress in their lives. She wants children to develop their best potential and mothers to have the peace of mind to achieve their best.
She works toward these goals through her books which discuss the different issues in early childhood development and the difficulties that mothers have in balancing their needs with the needs of their children.
The author of several parenting books, Dr. Anbar lives in Phoenix, Arizona close to her children and is the proud mother of two sons and grandmother of six grandchildren.
Ada’s most recent book focuses on one of the aspects at the other end of human development, dementia.
Based on her recent experience with her husband, her new book is “When Love Meets Dementia — Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) and the Family”.
Now available for purchase at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other fine bookstores.
