3 year old problems?

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 10:32:49 +1300, Judy King wrote:

Well I'm no expert so I can't answer the other stuff but this one I had to
comment. He's three! that's what they do, my three year old nephew was
ALWAYS asking questions and yes, often repeatedly. I don't know about the
other issues but this to me is not a problem!

I have even heard people refer to three as the "why" stage.

That's exactly what I told her when she brought this one up, and she
responded with "well, yes, but he's almost 4 and should have been over
that a year ago." I'm beginning to think she's either forgetting how young
our little guy is, or she's out of touch with reality.

Barb

I too am concerned that she's bringing all this up after only two
afternoons with him. While I realize she's not a child psychologist or
anything, I did want to listen to her concerns with an open mind. Perhaps
it was too open. In future I will listen to her with a grain of salt.

We have heard nothing but praise about this sitter from other people we
know, so I think we'll stick it out for another couple of weeks. I am
going to talk with her and perhaps bring her a stack of printouts from the
research I've done (partially with the help of you guys) that shows our
son is right on track.

It's so hard to listen to someone that has any sort of criticism of your
child, yet at the same time, I had to listen because maybe she's seeing
something that we've been missing all along.

Thanks again for you help.

Barb

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 00:20:41 +0000, H Schinske wrote:

Yes, very common. My son had a speech evaluation at just over three years
of age, and his pronunciation was considered very good and easy to
understand, and he did exactly that kind of thing. I think in his case it
was slightly more of a Y sound, like saying "yemonade" for "lemonade." I
forget how long he went on saying it, but I think he was certainly still
doing it at 3.5.

Helen,

Yes, that's almost exactly what my DS is doing. We've been trying to get
him to practice by saying "la la la" and he just shuts us down. I don't
want to get him too defensive about it so I haven't been pushing him too
hard.

Barb

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:40:10 -0400, Bruce and Jeanne wrote:

I think you're right. I would watch how he deals with other strangers -
see if he makes eye contact with them.

We've talked to several people at our church about this, and everyone says
he looks them in the eye when he talks with them. Last night we went to a
church pot-luck (I ate way too much, but that's another story) and paid
careful attention to eye-contact specifically, and I don't see a problem
here.

Barb.

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:40:10 -0400, Bruce and Jeanne wrote:

This sounds a bit off. Do you know the 7 year old? If so, can you ask
him? It's usually no big deal if you just go up to the child and ask if
your child did hit him. If so, apologize for your son and if not, thank
him for the information. It may actually have been a tap like your son
said.

Yeah, I don't understand it. I believed her, thinking that perhaps my son
was under stress or something and acted out as a result. We're going to
take a "wait and see" position on this issue.

Barb

Barb White wrote in message ...
Our 3.5 year old son just started at a new babysitter a couple of days a
week. Yesterday was his first day, and both yesterday and today were only
for 3 hours each. We're trying to ease into the occasional full day there.

The babysitter raised a number concerns she had about our son when I
picked him up today, but I'm not sure if her concerns are valid.
........

I'm quite
upset about this and don't know if we have anything to worry about or not.
On one hand, I was going to take him directly to the doctor to get a
referral to a speech language pathologist, and a child psychologist, and
discontinue the preschool and the babysitter, then crawl under the bed for
a few weeks. On the other hand, I'm hoping this is all just a normal
developmental phase.

I'd be more concerned about the sitter than the kid! These issues
just don't seem like the kind of thing I would expect my sitter to
comment on after just a few days. I wonder what her experience with
kids this age is and what her expectations for behavior are.

Chris

Just to update everyone, we have discontinued our relationship with this
babysitter. She really wasn't working out. The following week when I met
with her to let her know that I talked with a speech-language pathologist,
and met with our pediatrician, and she is completely off-base here.

She responded that she did a lot of reading on her own, and she now
believes that our son is autistic. Argh! We again talked to our
pediatrician who laughed at me when I told him this. He said that "a
little information in the wrong hands can be a bad thing, and this woman
should stop making diagnoses when she's obviously not trained or qualified
to do so."

I have since learned from talking to our state health department's
childcare division (while looking for a new sitter), that our (now) former
sitter has been running an illegal babysitting service. I knew she wasn't
licensed and that's alright. What isn't alright is that nobody, licensed
or not, is allowed to have the number of children she has. When I picked
our guy up yesterday, there were 4 other kids there, plus her 2. The
health department tells me she would be allowed to sit a maximum of two
children in addition to the two of her own that she has. Her argument that
her 10-year-old daughter helps out doesn't cut it with the regulators.
They'll be paying her an unannounced visit next week. I would love to be a
fly on the wall for that. :-)

Not that I mean to be vindictive, because I don't. However, I do not want
anyone else to go through what we have gone through with her. It's very
hard for our son to understand why he's not going back to her place again.

The search for better childcare begins again. Wish me luck.

Barb

Glad you got your kid away from this person -- she sounds like a nutcase,
frankly. Good luck with the next one.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

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