Peace of Mind

We returned from our sabbaticals in June and our kids quickly integrated back in to their old daycare, situated on Dr. H.'s campus. We are very happy with the place, mainly because the kids seem to enjoy it so much. Though they enjoy the setting in different ways.

Curie has many friends and runs around with them all day long, participating in a lot of cooperative play. Dalton, on the other hand, enjoys playing by himself and figuring things out. He doesn't tend to seek out other children (except for Curie on occasion) and often simply ignores them when they are close by. I've spoken about this before, when the kids were in daycare in Sabbatical Town. (Our sabbatical daycare provider found this behavior odd and somewhat troubling. I attributed it to having two geeky parents.)

Having moved into the preschool room in our old daycare resulted in a new wave of people interacting with both our children, and thus, a fresh perspective. The preschool teachers, it turns out, do not think Dalton has any problematic social issues - mainly because he interacts fine with adults, participates in some activities, and interacts with other children sometimes. The believe (like me) that he is just a kid who is fine being on his own. However, they do think it would not be a bad idea to encourage him to play with his peers on occasion.

They shared with us one of their strategies for encouraging him. During their twice daily outside times, Dalton normally grabs a bike-like toy and rides it around by himself, ignoring other children. Now, a few times a week, they pull the bikes in before letting the kids out. Why? So my son will be encouraged to play with other kids on the playground once in a while. And it works, on those days he does play with other children, without any additional prompting.

But did you catch that? Our daycare rearranges activities just because they think it might be be a good idea for one of the children in the (largish) group.

I love that place.