r/Preschoolers

I love my kids deeply, but some days motherhood feels incredibly repetitive and mentally exhausting. And every time a mom admits that online, people act like she secretly hates her children.

I have twin girls and there are days where I answer 400 questions, break up 20 arguments, clean the same mess five times, and hear “mom” so much that my brain feels physically tired.

I feel like previous generations were way more honest about parenting being hard, while modern parenting culture expects moms to sound endlessly grateful 24/7.

I’m at a loss. I don’t know if this is normal or if we need to get her checked by a professional. But often whenever our 3.5 year old is tired, she has started to want things done a certain way - and will want to try again until it’s done exactly how she had envisioned. Most of the time she will make up how she wants it done after it’s already done. For example, we will be going from the bathroom to the bedroom and I will walk ahead of her to open the door. She will scream that she wanted to open the door first and want us to go back to our positions so she can open it. And she will want us to go back to the exact positions we were in the bathroom. And if we don’t do something exactly how it was previously, she will ask to do it again (go back to the same position and start again). Things like this. It’s getting really tiring. I’m not sure what to do when it happens anymore because whatever we try - nothing changes. We try to offer her lots of options during the day and during bedtime to give her agency and autonomy… but it still happens. HELPPP

Hi! I have a 4yo whose nervous systems has a hard time with peaceful, silent moments (just like me). I lay with my son until he falls asleep. Increasingly he has been expressing anxieties and fears before he falls asleep. I truly believe it’s his brain filling in for stimuli in the silence.

All this to say, I have been considering having audiobooks on when my son falls asleep. A part of me is afraid he’ll stay up to listen but another part thinks this might help his anxiety. Anyone here have their kids listen to audiobooks to sleep and can share their experience?

My toddler is going back to preschool in July and we have a 3 month old baby who I’m breastfeeding. When toddler goes back to school I know it will be a never ending vortex of viruses again. Wondering if I give her my breastmilk in her sippy cup whether it’ll help protect her / help her recover faster…

A throwaway to remain anonymous. My son graduated from preschool and they had a ceremony. One by one , kids were being called up to receive their diplomas and take a picture with their teacher. Everyone, except my boy. When the teacher went to make closing remarks, I pointed to my son and they stumbled and fumbled over their words to eek out his name. But there was no diploma for him. We took his picture anyway. The ceremony conclucluded and at first they thought they accidently gave another child my son's diploma. So they checked them all. Not there. They then thought, maybe one child got two by mistake. Not dice. So they went to search the classroom. And it wasn't there. I KNOW they scrambled to print one out for him. Because it took at least 15 minutes to "find" it and the school is tiny.

Understandably, we were very upset. My son noticed he wasn't called. But it was worse than that. They said little speeches for each child highlighting their personalities. And when they finally called my son's name out, they said very generic things about him, some of it unlike him completely. It bothered me the most because he is autistic and it took us a very long time and alot of work to get to where he is. He was non-verbal, in therapies for years, alot of evaluations and efforts to see progress. And it is major for us that he was able to graduate preschool with neurotypical children on time. I got so upset I had to leave. I feel like they forgot my child, and now question were they ever paying attention to him? Was he just a face? The teacher did apologize, but it was little consolation. He was robbed of a very important milestone.

fun learning activities can help preschoolers develop important skills while enjoying playtime. simple games, crafts, and handson activities make learning more interactive and exciting. which learning activity does your child enjoy the most?

My child is graduating preschool this month. For the last year, they’ve been best buds with a classmate, and we’ve become friendly with the parents. We’ve had several playdates and they seemed like nice people, but over the last two months, I’ve seen a side of one parent that makes me want to pull back significantly.

The Red Flags
Overstepping Boundaries: During a school event, this parent directly confronted a 5-year-old classmate who was acting out, rather than speaking to the child’s parents. It was aggressive, inappropriate, and very uncomfortable to witness.

Lack of Social Awareness: At a recent kindergarten info session, they dominated the meeting with an aggressive amount of questions. It was so bad that I could hear other parents around the room whispering for them to stop talking.

The "Cling" Factor: The biggest red flag is that this parent recently switched their child to our specific elementary school district just so the kids could stay together.

The Dilemma:
I’m now very concerned that this person is going to be the "problem parent" of the grade—overbearing, abrasive toward other parents, and potentially "helicoptering" any kids who don't get along with theirs.

My partner believes that if the kids aren't in the same class, the relationship will naturally fade. However, I’m worried this parent is going to lobby the school to keep our kids together. We plan on being "busy" all summer to create distance, but we are looking at six years of elementary school together.

My questions for the group:

1. How do I maintain a polite "acquaintance" distance without being pulled back into a close friendship?
2. Should I proactively ask the school not to place our children in the same class, or will that make me the "drama" parent?
3. Has anyone dealt with a parent who "latched on" like this? How did it play out?

So my daughter is almost 4.5. She’s an only child. Incredibly outgoing and friendly. Can make friends anywhere. If we’re at the park and a kid comes, immediately she’s asking their name, saying her name, asking to play together. Very talkative.

When some kids are shy and don’t want to play it’s so hard for her to understand. She gets really sad. I try so hard to explain the situation. It makes my heart hurt for her.

hi fellow parents

my girl is just over 3 years old and have a bit of a hard time with using her and she as pronouns correctly.. she refers to everyone as she but she can make complex sentences like “ mommy do you remember when I got stuck on the little slide at the park ? .. she is fine with the other pronouns but I can’t seem to be able to help her regardless of how many times I correct her ..

how normal is that in neurotypical kids ?

We got messaged today from daycare asking if it was okay to give our kid pop (more specifically, Sprite and/or Root beer). Message also included that teacher told the kids first they needed every parents approval.
What age is appropriate for pop (soda, or whatever you may call it) and why on earth would you say something to 4 and 5 year olds first then go and ask the parents if it’s okay.
I replied no right away.

I am a stay at home mom raising two little boys. Right now I am having such a difficult time with my 4 year old. Talking back, saying mean things, and a big one for me is wasting food. We buy mostly healthy food, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and I make many things myself. My son will ask for something, let’s say a croissant and then just break it into small pieces and make something out of the pieces (a robot, a monster, etc) and this is one of my big triggers.
Today at the park, he started throwing some of the blueberries I brought, on the floor and crushing them. When I confront him about it (“why would you do that?”) he gets defensive. My main form of discipline is putting him in timeout if we’re at home. But at this point I just don’t even know what to do. He’s a smart little guy but he has such an attitude.
When I was little, I was afraid of my mom because she would hit me. I turned out okay (I think) and certainly don’t want my son to feel like that but at the same time, speaking calmly and logically to him isn’t working and I’m exhausted.

Need some inspiration for new books to check out from the library for my 4 year old daughter. Hit me with your kid's favorites right now!

First time mom without good support or role models. I don’t want my 4 year old to fall behind.

What should we be teaching? Hard skills. I know we should be reinforcing the soft skills like emotional regulation, cooperation, kindness, creativity, imaginative play. Should my kid be reading right now? She has known the alphabet for a while and can count to 100. We read her books as much as possible and try to spell out words. I have a Montessori wooden block spelling words toy, but she’s not super interested. She is very strong willed and I think has demand avoidance so can’t just sit down and do readiness work if she doesn’t want to.

Any advice for starting reading? Any play-based ideas? Or any other hard skills? She’ll be in universal pre K in the fall and has been in daycare her whole life (but they do these awful worksheets basically just tracing letters and coloring pictures).

My daughter is 4 and a birthday in early November.
We planned to send her for another year of preschool so she would be 5 turning 6 when starting Kindergarten. However, her teachers informed us that she is on par with or perhaps even ahead of all the students in her class emotionally, socially, and academically. They believe she will be bored doing another year of preschool and is ready to move on.

At 4 years old, she is also the same size as or larger than 5 and 6 year olds. She is the tallest in her class despite being the youngest.

On one hand, I do not want to rush her childhood or regret sending her early down the line.

On the other hand, I do not want her to struggle socially being a girl who is bigger than all her peers.

Thoughts?
If she’s on target or advanced socially, emotionally, academically, and physically is there any harm in sending early?

I realize there seems to be a crackdown on age and enrollment in California but wondering if anyone recently had a September birthday kid skip TK and jump to K. My daughter is a September birthday and behind the date cutoff for kindergarten this year. She's naturally very advanced academically, she can read around a first grade+ level and does addition and subtraction on her own. She's been in a mixed age group Montessori preschool since she was 2 and they mentioned I should push for her to go to Kindergarten this year because she's just a couple weeks behind the age cutoff (and tbh she's a bit of a troublemaker when she's got time to kill) The teacher insisted she almost never ever recommends that but in this case she's certain it would be best for this kid. There are plenty of kids who did their TK year at her preschool and she's top of class ahead of everyone older than her, she is also academically beyond all her friends who did public TK this year and socially at the same level with them. I do worry a bit about her starting TK with a bunch of 4 year olds and feeling totally and utterly bored as kids just a couple weeks older than her will be in K. I realize there are advantages towards being oldest in class I don't need anyone chiming in with those, just curious if anyone had an experience or success with a request to advance a kid out of TK.

Edit: everyone who's real gung ho about TK can leave their comments about this topic elsewhere. I LITERALLY DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT TK OR HOW MUCH YOU OR YOUR CHILD LOVED IT OR WHAT VALUE YOU THINK "SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING" HAS. IT IS NOT WHAT I ASKED AND I SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED ABOVE NO COMMENTS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF BEING OLDER. I UNDERSTAND THAT POV WHICH IS, AGAIN, AN OPINION.

My 5 year old always wants what’s on my plate…even when it’s the exact same thing on his 🤦🏻‍♀️. Then he’d sort of juggle a bite from each plate, effectively contaminating both. Was fed up with my meal constantly being tainted by booger pickin’ fingers/slobber so started sprinkling pepper on mine. Now I don’t even need to say anything - he steers clear! Simple yet effective. Working for us very well and now my breakfast is my own again :)

NEW: University of Washington researchers planned to have preschool teachers wear cameras that would record everything they saw from a first-person perspective, including the children they were teaching, then use that footage to develop AI models.

Crucially, it was opt-out, rather than opt-in.

“I am troubled by the idea of using my child's likeness in unknown AI tools and how this could be abused,” a parent said. “I was particularly concerned about families’ ability to give informed consent. As a native English speaker, the vague language in the handout left me with a slew of questions."After 404 Media contacted the university for comment, the section of its website describing the study was taken offline.

Read now: https://www.404media.co/researchers-wanted-preschool-teachers-to-wear-cameras-to-train-ai/

We purchased the Owlet Cam 2 before my son was born 3.5 years ago. Over the last few months it’s been glitching a lot, not working entirely (losing its signal overnight therefore turning off and I don’t notice until I wake up). I’m sure it’s because the newer software is not compatible with its older model. Annoying but anyways.

My son’s room is on the top floor and my workout space is 2 floors down and in general, our house is big enough that it makes it so I can’t hear him if I’m just one floor down + while he’s gotten a lot better than the early aughts, he’s never been an excellent sleeper so I’m not ready to not have a monitor for him yet.

What’s everyone’s favourite baby monitor these days? The Owlet camera was never great (as many people know) so I don’t want to get another Owlet.

TIA! 🫶🏼