Last year when Justine Neill was 3 years old, her parents sensed that she was ready to explore the world beyond her own living room.

“It was my impression that she was getting bored around the house and needed more stimulation,” says her father, Andy Neill, of Joliet, Ill. “She really seemed to like it. She’s really doing well.” Neill also felt the preschool environment would provide Justine with more structured activities – the family had recently welcomed a pair of twins.

After having such a successful experience two mornings per week last year, Justine will be going three mornings a week starting this fall.

All Children Are Different
Although Justine dealt well with the preschool environment at age 3, not all children do. Some are not quite ready to separate from their parents for extended periods of time, says Dorothy Brown-Brumbaugh, a preschool teacher in the Chicago Heights School District in Illinois.

Brown-Brumbaugh, who has been teaching for 25 years, says it is not unusual for 3-year-olds to begin crying when their parents leave them at preschool. They may also have tantrums and constantly ask when their parents will be returning. “That could last over a period of weeks,” says Brown-Brumbaugh. “They do eventually get over it, but my conjecture is that if they had stayed home longer, say another semester or another school year, they would have come and been ready to jump right in and not go through that agony.”

What to Consider
Parents need to consider their child’s emotional maturity, as well as their intellectual curiosity, when deciding whether or not their little one is ready for preschool.

“If they are used to being left with a sitter or stay in a Sunday school and participate for the duration of time without missing their parent too much and if they’re showing comfort in front of strangers, for instance, new family or new neighbors or new people at church,” says Brown-Brumbaugh, they might be ready to try preschool.

“Most 4-year-olds are really eager to reach out and explore their world, and if they’ve been secure at home, they carry that security with them into new situations,” says Brown-Brumbaugh. “There might be some cases where a child is clingy because of the nature of the parent-child relationship, and the child is ready to go anyway. If the parent wants to check out whether the child is ready, they can try it on a trial basis with the understanding that if it doesn’t work, they’ll wait.” She says that sometimes the child is more ready for preschool than the parent.

“The parent and the teacher should have regular check-ins to see how things are going, and if the child is out-and-out refusing to go, there is probably a reason for that,” says Brown-Brumbaugh.

Lois Pedersen, a retired Montessori directress with 29 years of experience, says many 3-year-olds are looking for a wider world than the home environment and if they are spending too much time in front of the television, it is time for parents to look into preschool.

Visiting Preschools
Brown-Brumbaugh and Pedersen recommend that parents visit preschools before deciding to send their child. While one preschool may not work for their child, another one might be perfect.

Pedersen says parents should not assume how any classroom will be run, because they will all be different, depending upon the individual teacher. Even Montessori classrooms will vary from one to another. “There are people who will come away from Montessori saying it is very rigid because they were in a classroom where the teacher was very rigid,” says Pedersen. On the other hand, some teachers are much more relaxed.

Brown-Brumbaugh suggests parents visit by themselves first, so they can observe interactions between the parents and teachers, then take the child for a separate visit.

If the child cannot sit still for more than a few minutes, he or she would not succeed in a classroom where the teacher expects the students to sit at desks to complete worksheets or listen to a story. As children get older their attention span increases naturally. In the meantime, parents can take the child to a library story time or similar structured activity.

Parents may especially want to hold their child back one year if they have a summer birthday or will be one of the youngest students in the class. “Your child may benefit from being one of the oldest in the class rather than one of the youngest,” says Brown-Brumbaugh.

What If They’re Not Ready?
“I think parents should not sell themselves short in terms of what the child can learn at home and through the daily living activities of a family,” says Brown-Brumbaugh. “I’m assuming that the parent talks to the child a lot about what they’re doing and why and what they’re going to do next, that the child accompanies the parent to the grocery store, the bank, the post office and to social events that include other parents and children.”

Brown-Brumbaugh says it’s better to keep a child at home for another year rather than send them to preschool if they would be miserable. It is more important for children to learn social skills than their alphabet when they are 3 or 4. Preschool at 5 may be better for some children than sending them to kindergarten at that age, because kindergarten today is very structured and academic.

“It’s got to feel right to that parent, and if you have any doubt, trust your parental instincts about what to do with your child,” says Neill.