T hated nursery, every minute of it.  We went through the whole host of emotions and she tried every trick in the book in order to stay at home.  In the end I used to drop her off and run quickly away before she could start clinging to me but the real low was when she made herself sick.  There we were in the middle of the nursery, lots of mum’s and children around being dropped off with no problems at all and there was my darling daughter throwing up all over the floor!  This was the term before she started school and she was 4 1/2.

J is now in his penultimate term before starting school and he has started telling me that he hates nursery and doesn’t want to go.  Today he said ‘Mummy, I LOVE staying at home.’

Is there a need for pre-schoolers to go to nursery?  My reasoning was so that they can start interacting with children of similar ages and learn social skills.  But I also think that I wanted them to start so that I could interact with adults again!  However T now loves school, she is one of the best in her class at reading and writing and I fully expect J to be the same given the excellent educational starts that have been presented to them.  I think though that children are growing up too quickly and perhaps being packed off at the age of 2 (or even younger) is something to do with that.  I feel guilty that I have put my kids through the trauma of separation and learning from such a young age.   However I am delighted that J loves his time at home.