Girly, Vanity, Self-Esteem?

[featherstoryaniweda]

There's a community center next to where I'm living. I was on the way to the store yesterday and they asked me if I wanted to be a part of their program.

They want my 1 year old in their baby projects and my 4 year old in their self-esteem project.

The woman said they teach them how to sit and walk. The 4 year olds... I don't really understand why 4 year olds need to be taught to sit and walk. She said other stuff too, but those things stuck out.

I was invited to come to a meet and greet on Sunday. She said the girls get to know each other and become friends. I would like my daughter to have more friends, but I think she is already too vain. I really would like to foster a sense of self-esteem and empowerment in her, but I don't want to reinforce gender stereotypes, and I'm afraid that might be what this was all about.

Has anyone ever been involved in anything like this or heard of similar projects? I really don't want to take my daughter there if I'm going to hate it. She always overreacts when we have to leave a playing situation or if she can't get what she wants.

The worst part about it is that if I don't want to do it, I have to be really honest about it, because they will see me walking by from time to time and my daughter will want to go there again if she knows where it is.

I don't want to start some dramatic event in our relationship over what I consider is unethical...pageants, etc.

But at the core of it...self-esteem, friends, playing it sounds like it could be a good experience.
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[BlueJedi]

Maybe ask the lady if she has any brochures about what the place is about, exactly.

You could always have your daughter join Girl Scouts. They're about self esteem and promoting team work, without focusing on looks. I think that sounds like it might be a better choice and more in line with what you want for her than the other place, which quite honestly, sounds like a charm school or mini pageant place to me.

You're the parent, so you get to decide!

[racheli]

The place sounds totally like a charm school (the kind I read about in books when I was a kid) and maybe even a beginning-pageant place. I would avoid it. Kids that age don't need to learn to walk, they already know how to walk thank you, and sit? Um, she's 4. She ain't gonna sit. She should be running and playing, anyway, not sitting and learning how to "walk proper"!

Is it a county-run community center or private? (Are there private community centers?) It seems weird to me that public funds would be used for what seriously sounds like getting girls into beauty pageants.

She's probably too young for Girl Scouts (I think you have to be in kindergarden for Daisies, the youngest group, but I may be wrong) but that's a great idea when she's a few years older! I would look for classes that will encourage hobbies, creativity and/or athletics, such as art, swimming, gymnastics etc.
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[chelsea_belle]

Not a parent but wanted to throw in another rec for girl scouts! daisies indeed start in K so she's a little young but it's a fab organization for girls!
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[featherstoryaniweda]

We easily avoided that. I don't know much about the community center, it just opened up and it seems like they have a variety of different projects going on there.

The woman wanted to put my baby in a pageant! I mean a pageant for babies, what are they supposed to do, coo louder than the last contestant???

I wanted to believe it was something cool because it is right next to me and my transportation situation has been challenging lately, but there's no way I'd let my daughter go anywhere that claims to teach a four year old how to walk and sit!

The truth is I've been working on a Yoga scouts program for awhile and it is just not actualizing as fast as I thought it would, so I was pretty eager to have a community like that for my daughter to be in, but I'll keep going for it.
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[erin_luv]

This is a related/unrelated question:

Kids in the US are over 4 when they go to Kindergarten? Do you just have one level of Kindergarten, then? Here we have Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten. I started JK when I was 3 because my birthday is in November and I'd be turning 4 then.

/hijack.

[snoopy]

In the US (or at least from my experience in California), there is one level of kindergarten in public schools. Kids are either 4 or 5 when they start; the age/cutoff date varies from district to district. In private schools, there might be a junior level of kindergarten for the younger kids (and then followed by a year of regular kinder), but it's not ubiquitous among all of them.

We also have pre-school (sometimes called pre-k) for the first year or two before kids enter kindergarten.
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[Pearliepie]

In Colorado (erm, in my district, at least) we have a classroom called ECE and I cannot remember what that stands for at all. It's a pre-k ofr 3-4 year olds.
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[Jzane]

We had a place that taught the same kind of things in my home town, but it was called a modeling school and there was no doubt about what it was. It wasn't a community center, it was a privately owned business and you paid for classes, much the same as you would send your kid to karate or whatever. We went one time as an activity when I was in Brownies and learned how to walk and sit. I think I was about 8 or 9.

As far as school, some public schools have 4-year-old pre-K included in the curriculum, it just depends on the district and the school. The school I did my field experience in had half-day pre-K, with entrance given on a priorities basis to at-risk kids. The school was in a low-income community anyway, but most of our kids were low-income, single parent households or were at risk for learning and social disorders. There was a waiting list a mile long too.
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