Baudhuin Preschool Quotes

If you make the decision to send your kid to public school don't even look at private schools. Just shut the door. Just turn off the TV. And then you don't even have to worry about preschool. You have to worry about what's good for your kid, but you don't have to worry about how to position yourself. ~ Cynthia Nixon

I'm missing work. We didn't have enough money for preschool. I had a panic attack. I couldn't do it. I became one of those horrible foster parents who give the kids back. ~ Vanessa Diffenbaugh

This framing accents the importance of building a tidier system, one that incorporates the array of existing child care centers, then pushes to make their classrooms more uniform, with a socialization agenda "aligned" with the curricular content that first or second graders are expected to know. Like the common school movement, uniform indicators of quality, centralized regulation, more highly credientialed teachers are to ensure that instruction
rather than creating engaging activities for children to explore
will be delivered in more uniform ways. And the state signals to parents that this is now the appropriate way to raise one's three- or four-year-old. Modern child rearing is equated with systems building in the eyes of universal pre-kindergarten advocates
and parents hear this discourse through upbeat articles in daily newspapers, public service annoucement, and from school authorities. ~ Bruce Fuller

The best predictor of preschool children's physical activity is simply being outdoors. ~ James Sallis

At age 64 I started working at a preschool. I figured the kids would have a lot to teach me. ~ Jerry Snider

Do you miss her?
I blinked. Did I what? This was my best friend since preschool we were talking about, the girl whose snack and math homework I'd shared since before I had memorized my own phone number, who'd buried her cold, annoying little feet underneath me during a thousand different movie nights and showed me how to use a tampon. She'd grown up in my kitchen, she was my shadow- self - or I was hers - and Sawyer wanted to know if I missed her? What the hell kind of question was that? ~ Katie Cotugno

We're not going to give tax breaks to billionaires and then cut back on the needs of our elderly or poor or kids or education. We're not going to privatize Social Security - in fact, we're going to strengthen it. We're going to provide quality education for every kid in America, from preschool through college. We have to take on these corporate leaders who are selling out the American people, whose allegiance is now much more to China than it is to the United States. If we have the courage to take these people on, I think we can overwhelm George W. Bush and his friends. ~ Bernie Sanders

Some parents expend great efforts to get their kids into the right nursery school or the right preschool, with the thought that that will set them on the path to success, to competitive success especially. ~ Michael Sandel

All problems, including terrorism, can be overcome through education, particularly by introducing concern for all others at the preschool level. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Many Americans have lost confidence in the way our criminal courts assess guilt and innocence. Whatever one thinks of the verdicts, the recent trials of O.J. Simpson, Erik and Lyle Menendez, and various defendants in preschool molestation cases have been lengthy, lawyer-dominated soap operas in which the search for truth has been subordinated to the manipulation of procedures. ~ James Q. Wilson

The In-Between somehow makes you feel grimy, like all those sights and sounds and sensations and smells have stuck to you, like you've been rolling around in a preschool art class's trash can. ~ Michael Reaves, Mallory Reaves

How do you give smart, accomplished, ambitious women the same opportunities as men to reach their goals? What about universal preschool and after-school programs? What about changing the corporate mind-set about the time commitment it takes to move up the ladder? What about having more husbands step up and take the major load? ~ Gail Collins

When you're three, you don't draw what you see
you draw upon your imagination. Nobody tells you to stop putting wings on people, unless you have a most unfortunate preschool teacher. You are intoxicated by your own magic. ~ Kirsten Hubbard

In most countries, attending some kind of early childhood program (i.e., preschool or prekindergarten) led to real and lasting benefits. On average, kids who did so for more than a year scored much higher in math by age fifteen (more than a year ahead of other students). But in the United States, kids' economic backgrounds overwhelmed this advantage. The quality of the early childhood program seemed to matter more than the quantity. ~ Amanda Ripley

In preschool, I would plan out my show-and-tell every week to be funny and exciting. Then in first grade I wrote a play, and my classmates and I performed it as a puppet show. ~ Maxim Knight

Economists have calculated that every dollar invested in high-quality home visitation, day care, and preschool programs results in seven dollars of savings on welfare payments, health-care costs, substance-abuse treatment, and incarceration, plus higher tax revenues due to better-paying jobs.37 ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

I'm a great believer that the most important years are the sort of early years but the preschool years and then into the first and second grades. If you get a good base in the first and second grade and you can read, you can do anything. ~ Barbara Bush

Somethings are private. And they should stay that way and they get to stay that way. This isn't preschool; I don't have to share. ~ Barry Lyga

To emphasize how truly backward our society is...let's finish with a little quiz. Let's do it like Jeopardy.

In 1990, this government required companies to give a new mother a year's leave at 90% pay.
Answer: What was Sweden?

This country provided nurseries for most children over eighteen months.
Answer: What was Sweden?

Nearly half of the children under three in this country were in publicly financed nurseries, and nearly 95% of children three to six were (and are).
Answer: What is Denmark?

In this country, 95% of children aged three to five are in preschool.
Answer: What is France?

This country provides care for one quarter of children under three in wholly or partially subsidized nurseries.
Answer: What is France?

In 1984, this country gave workers twelve weeks of maternity leave with pay.
Answer: What is Brazil? (Yes, Brazil!)

This country mandated eight weeks of maternity leave WITH PAY.
Answer: What is Kenya? (You heard us, Kenya!)

This country provided none of these things; instead, to help mothers and small children, its magazines featured profiles of rich celebrity moms who could show women how to do it all.
Answer: What was the United States? ~ Susan J. Douglas

School is very conformist, and one of the very first conforming that goes on in preschool and kindergarten is gender. ~ Dan Savage

I have to make a dress out of recycled materials for my kid's preschool 'Project Runway'-like assignment. I'm currently fusing plastic bags. ~ Busy Philipps

My nana was always a widow as long as I was alive; my grandfather died before I was born. All the women on my street - there were four houses in a row with all old women who lived alone who were widowed. They all had kids, but they were all widowed. My mom didn't put me in preschool; I didn't know that was a thing. I just hung out with these women all day. ~ Jen Kirkman

I think day care is terrific. Kids get to be around other kids, and they're playing, and they're teaching each other. When I was in college, my summer job was being a preschool teacher. I loved it, and after that experience, I said I can't wait to put my kid in day care because I could see how much they loved it. ~ Jessica Valenti

My wakeup call wasn't some light switch of empowerment. From as early as preschool I feared that if I didn't grow up to be the pretty princess men fawned over, I was a failure. That mentality was my disease. It got me raped. It made me feel dirty and devalued because my cherry wasn't popped on a bed of rose petals. It fueled an adolescence juggling starvation and vomiting until my throat bled out and my stomach acid burned through the plumbing. It made me snort coke, smoke meth, and routinely gulp down narcotic petri dishes in hopes of obtaining hallucinogenic intimacy with junkie boyfriends. But most of all, it made me waste my youth chasing, obsessing over, fighting for, worshipping, clinging to, and crying over one after another loser. At some point, I just quit giving a fuck. ~ Maggie Young

Repetition is sometimes the best way to deal with the Luideag: just keep saying the same thing over and over until she gets fed up and gives you what you want. All preschoolers have an instinctive grasp of this concept, but most don't practice it on immortal water demons. That's probably why there are so few disembowelments in your average preschool. ~ Seanan McGuire

I'm somebody who doesn't work with a stylist. I'll be honest with you, I'm a mom and it's just not something I want to put money toward because it's expensive to have somebody who helps dress you and I feel like I have to pay for preschool and so many things ... so I don't have a stylist. ~ Busy Philipps

The national curriculum for the Swedish preschool is twenty pages long and goes on at length about things like fostering respect for one another, human rights, and democratic values, as well as a lifelong desire to learn. The document's word choices are a pretty good clue to what Swedish society wants and expects from toddlers and preschoolers. The curriculum features the word "play" thirteen times, "language" twelve times, "nature" six times, and "math" five times. But there is not a single mention of "literacy" or "writing." Instead, two of the most frequently used words are "learning" (with forty-eight appearances) and "development" (forty-seven).

The other Scandinavian countries have similar early childhood education traditions. In Finland, formal teaching of reading doesn't start until the child begins first grade, at age seven, and in the Finnish equivalent of kindergarten, which children enroll in the year they turn six, teachers will only teach reading if a child is showing an interest in it. Despite this lack of emphasis on early literacy, Finland is considered the most literate country in the world, with Norway coming in second, and Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden rounding out the top five, according to a 2016 study by Central Connecticut State University. John Miller, who conducted the study, noted that the five Nordic countries scored so well because "their monolithic culture values reading. ~ Linda Åkeson McGurk

As a kid, did you think when you grew up you'd be spoken to as if you were still in preschool? When did it become okay to treat adults this way? ~ Adam Carolla

It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters. We become enamored with men's theories such as the idea of preschool training outside the home for young children. Not only does this put added pressure on the budget, but it places young children in an environment away from mother's influence. Too often the pressure for popularity, on children and teens, places an economic burden on the income of the father, so mother feels she must go to work to satisfy her children's needs. That decision can be most shortsighted. It is mother's influence during the crucial formative years that forms a child's basic character. Home is the place where a child learns faith, feels love, and thereby learns from mother's loving example to choose righteousness. How vital are mother's influence and teaching in the home - and how apparent when neglected! ~ Ezra Taft Benson

It is interesting that amongst children of preschool age, the more intelligent ones tend to sleep less than the dull ones. After the age of seven this relationship is reversed, the more intelligent schoolchildren sleeping more than the dull ones. ~ Desmond Morris

I was in preschool and a girl actually kissed me on the cheek. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what it meant, so I instantly grabbed her face and kissed her on the lips. And, then I got suspended. ~ Jensen Ackles

Benefits of Improv To the Editor: Re "Inmate Improv," by Anna Clark (Op-Ed, Dec. 31): It was not surprising to me that an improvisational theater workshop would help a prison inmate adjust to life after his release. Pretend play has been shown to improve the executive-function skills in preschool and school-age children. These skills include the ability to control emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exercise self-control and discipline. As poor executive-function skills are associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime, it would behoove all adults involved in child-rearing to encourage role-playing or "improv." STEVEN ROSENBERG Fairfield, Conn., Dec. 31, 2014 The writer is director of the Elementary Reading Program at the University of Bridgeport School of Education. ~ Anonymous

Why is this important for school success? To get along in kindergarten, your child should know information like colors, shapes, seasons, holidays, farm animals, types of transportation, fruits, and vegetables - all the basics that children are exposed to through picture books, preschool, and life itself. He will be expected to demonstrate age-appropriate social standards and behavior. If he knocks over someone's art project, he should know to apologize and help pick it up. ~ Karen Quinn

That made Dad pretty mad, so he said
"NO SON OF MINE IS A QUITTER!"
Which isn't really true at all. I'm a HUGE quitter, and so is Rodrick. And I think Manny is on his third of fourth preschool by now. ~ Jeff Kinney

I got a lot of things that society had promised would make me whole and fulfilled - all the things that the culture tells you from preschool on will quiet the throbbing anxiety inside you - stature, the respect of colleagues, maybe even a kind of low-grade fame. ~ Anne Lamott

I'm in the middle of my own 'Project Runway' challenge given to me by my daughter's preschool. All the parents have to make an outfit for their kids, for school pictures, made entirely out of recycled objects. I can not believe I have homework. ~ Busy Philipps

Do preschoolers need all the trappings of elementary school . . . ? The faux academic overstimulation? The enforced choices? The cult-like obsession with readiness? I would say, mostly, they do not. And I think some of these trappings, such as the notorious print-rich environments we encountered with their busy totems to industriousness, can actually interfere with the task of becoming a good communicator and a literate person. We spend a lot of energy on creating print-rich environments but that's not at all the same thing as creating a language-rich environment.

Consider again the hope that Finland offers; its guidelines for preprimary (preschool) education remind us that:

"The basis for emerging literacy is that children have heard and listened, they have been heard, they have spoken and been spoken to, people have discussed things with them, and they have asked questions and received answers."

For our young children, what else is there to wish for? ~ Erika Christakis

Another friend of mine once told me in a deep depression that his marriage was "like running a preschool with a roommate you used to date." Nice. ~ Nigel Marsh

My family is number one in my life. I'll blow off writing or just about anything to make sure I take my son to preschool or watch him at his swimming lesson. ~ Henry Cho

In Sweden they have a very different approach. There, preschool children are encouraged to play and relax without any structured learning for the first six years of their lives. They go for nature walks every day, even in the bitter Scandinavian winter. They are not taught to read until they are seven years of age, yet by the age of ten, Swedish children consistently lead European literacy rankings. ~ Goldie Hawn

Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try to develop creative and innovative minds, capable of discovery from the preschool age on, throughout life? ~ Jean Piaget

Obituaries are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives. I defy you to find a single obituary that begins, "Jane Doe won the Nobel Prize in large part because she was admitted to a prestigious, highly selective preschool. After that, everything just kind of fell into place." Instead, you will read about dead ends, lucky coincidences, quirky habits, excessive self-confidence (often interspersed with bursts of excessive self-doubt), and a lot of passion for something. ~ Charles Wheelan

I ended up choosing her preschool party based on the fact that it was the closest to our house and would cause me the least amount of inconvenience when dropping her off and picking her up. I'm a busy person, what with all the laundry.

It's not that I don't care about her education. I do. But I can't be convinced, especially at her age, that it's important for her to be the first one to read. Or do equations. Or identify lots of different kinds of dinosaurs.

A lot of other moms I know seem to be concerned about this and are, in my opinion, unduly delighted with their children's progress in these areas. I'm secretly annoyed by that kind of precocious learning in the case of five-year-olds. ~ Muffy Mead-Ferro

It was his sister who came to the rescue. She was a preschool teacher. She dragged him along on a couple of field trips to help out with the kids. Teller was surprised by how much he enjoyed himself. ~ Peter Cawdron

Your preschool child will chatter endlessly to you. If you half-listen and half-reply the whole conversation will seem, and become, tediously meaningless for both of you. but if you really listen and really answer, he will talk more and what he says will make more sense. ~ Penelope Leach