Salon 1

Why Preschool is a Bad Idea 18 October 2010

So in my previous post, I mentioned a potential benefit to children staying at home at a later age prior to starting school. I now present the complimentary reason why going to school at too young of an age is detrimental to children, society, and could have long term impacts on childrens’ health.
At the preschool age, children have not yet learned many skills that we take for granted to get through our daily life – in particular, how to avoid getting sick. At preschool age, children are still putting things in their mouth, sneezing and coughing all over the place, not washing their hands when they need to, etc. This increases the chance of them getting sick astronomically.
Preschoolers that are sick might not always know they are sick, or know what to tell you about how they feel. This makes it difficult to even diagnose a sick toddler.
Once they are sick, there are very few medicines they can take. Often one has to resort to indirect medications, such as Benadryl for nasal congestion.
If there is a medicine they can take, you have the difficult task of trying to administer the medication in some manner that is often intimidating, resulting in hours of trying to squirt a syringe into the mouth of a kicking and screaming child, hoping you don’t loose too much of your ultra-conservatively measured prescription.
Few preschool age children can blow their nose at all, let alone effectively. Blowing your nose is one of the most effective means for managing what is often the most challenging symptom, nasal congestion. Not only does it interfere with their breathing, but as they sleep, the mucus drips down into their throat causing them to cough, and even into their stomach causing them to vomit. Often, they continuously sniff if they do not know how to blow their nose. All of this could lead to further complications, such as pneumonia and sinus infections. The alternative is a bulb syringe to the nose, which is also intimidating, and extremely painful if the child also has an ear infection, which is likely.
Toddlers with a fever are more likely to experience seizures.
Finally, a preschooler’s lack of training in cold management (sarcasm) results in increased spreading of the illness – snot on toys, not washing their hands, improper cough and sneezing coverages, etc.
Some interesting stats would be:
- The proportion of children in preschool that have to get tubes in their eardrums compared to those at home
- Sick day rates of adults with preschool children compared to those without.
I think you will find that preschool age children are the main hub of cold and flu season, at no fault of their own. Everyone benefits from children under 6 years old not attending school or day care, especially the children. A common argument I hear is that preschool builds their immune system. This is obviously not true. How many adults have immunities to the common cold or every strain of flu?

I am not a medical doctor, and this article in no way offers any medical advice. Always consult with a physician before treating anyone for any medical condition.