general

[Henryjon12]

I am a Mum to twin boys aged 3 years and 5 months. They have been  in nursery school for 4 weeks  and I felt that they had settled in well. However we had a meeting with the teacher, as did all parents to discuss how the children had settled in. She said that they were very happy there and were keen to try new things but that for their age they were a bit below average in terms of their understanding of sharing, attention span. She also alluded to the fact that DS one was better than DS2  in the area of speech development and sentence construction, although she said that DS2 was keener to chat to the teachers. I am now paranoid as I had been happy with their development.

They have no older brothers or sisters and up to this point had virtually no interaction with other children apart from each other. They are looked after by day by a child minder who is fantastic with them. They knew all their colours a year ago and know some  numbers. They are good with shapes and know all the makes of cars .They could point to  things in books from an early age. They had 200 words by the time they were 2 and started to put words together shortly after that. DS1 can make sentences of up to 15 words. DS2 has used sentences of up to 10 words but I suppose 5/6/7 would be more the norm. DS1 is definitely ahead of DS2 in sentence construction, never stops talking and always gets to answer questions first although DS2 will answer if he’s on his own. Does DS2 sound normal?   I am also a bit worried about their ability to make friends. DS2 is chatty to the teachers he does not interact very much with the other children yet,whereas I notice that DS1 has more to say when he comes home about the other kids. I share a lift to work each morning with a lady who has a boy 6 months older and he seemed to make friends very easily from a young age.Both boys interact well together at home and do understand the concept of sharing. Also, what length of time should children of this age be able to concentrate for . Both boys get bored quite easily especially when it comes to things like jigsaws, although they can easily the slotting in type and do 4 or 5 piece proper jigsaws when the mood takes them.. Sorry to be so long. Your thoughts would be appreciated.  

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

The fact that your sons are, for the first time, being exposed to a group of peers is important. Understandably, it will take a bit of time for them to acclimate to this. I really don't see anything at all alarming about the feedback you received. Both boys seem to be well within the norms for their age. Sometimes, in light of the prevalence of pre-school group experiences for children these days, we can expect too much of them at a young age. Try to keep the teacher's comments in perspective. Your sons are only three, and it is very normal for children so young to exhbit limited attention. It is the nature of children of this age. You are doing a sensible thing by broadening their world to include other children. Enjoy them and continue what you are doing. It sounds like the boys are fine.