Am I Expecting Too Much From My Kid’s Daycare? What I Learned After My First Parent-Teacher Conference
I was sitting in my idling minivan outside the daycare center last month, half-eaten granola bar on the center console, staring at the crumbs on my jeans and replaying my 3-year-old Mia’s first parent-teacher conference. Mia was passed out in the backseat, her worn stuffed rabbit tucked under one arm, and I couldn’t shake the tight twist in my chest. Ms. Rosa, Mia’s lead teacher, had said all the usual nice things: Mia is kind to her friends, she loves to climb the playground structure, she sings along to every circle time song even when she doesn’t know the words. But I’d left with more questions than answers. Why hadn’t she mentioned colors? Why couldn’t Mia count to 10 yet like the 3-year-old down the street? Was daycare not doing enough, or was I the one expecting too much?
I pay $1,800 a month for Mia’s spot at this daycare, which is just a couple hundred less than my monthly mortgage. That number floats through my head a lot when I’m signing the check each month. I keep thinking I should get something tangible for that investment, right? Not just warm fuzzies and a kid who comes home with paint on her shirt. I’d seen other parents post photos of their kids’ workbook pages on local parent groups, bragging that their daycare was getting them ready for kindergarten early. When I got a note home two weeks before the conference that Mia had spent 45 minutes digging for worms in the backyard instead of doing the planned leaf stamping art activity, I’d stared at that note for 10 minutes wondering if the daycare was letting her waste time.
A week after the conference, I had an early client meeting that meant dropping Mia off 20 minutes before the classroom officially opened. I walked in with her, Ms. Rosa was wiping down the snack table, and she pointed to a clear plastic bin sitting on the windowsill. Worms, all curled up in damp coffee grounds and dirt. “Your Mia asked me three days straight if worms really eat banana peels,” she said, leaning against the table. “So we got this bin, and we’ve been testing it. She checks it every morning before anything else. Did she tell you?” She hadn’t. I’d asked her every day what she did at school, and she’d just said “played outside.”
She saw me looking at the bin, and she said, offhand, that a lot of new parents ask her why they don’t send home more worksheets or do more structured skill practice. “We teach all of that, just not with pen and paper,” she said. “When they count how many worms are in the bin, that’s math. When they look through the worm book for answers, that’s pre-reading. When they wait their turn to hold the magnifying glass, that’s self-regulation. That’s the stuff that actually gets them ready for kindergarten, not tracing letters on a page.”
That conversation stuck with me, and I started untangling what I actually expected from daycare, realizing I’d mixed up three very different things: what daycare is responsible for, what my job is as a parent, and what’s just normal toddler development. I sat down that night on the couch after Mia went to bed and wrote down three non-negotiable expectations I have, and everything else gets bumped down the list. Mine are: first, Mia comes home safe, with all her limbs and mostly clean clothes. Second, her teachers know that she only eats cheddar Goldfish, that she hates having her hair brushed after nap, and that she needs a minute to warm up to new activities. Third, they let her follow the things she cares about, instead of forcing her to fit a pre-planned schedule. That’s it. Everything else is extra.
Before that, my unwritten list had things like “know all 10 basic colors by 3 and a half” “share without being reminded” “sit still for 15 minutes of circle time.” Those were unreasonable. I tested that, too. A week after the worm bin conversation, I caught myself quizzing Mia on colors while we waited for our coffee order, and I got frustrated when she kept calling her blue water bottle purple. Then I remembered what Ms. Rosa said: she knows her colors when she’s not put on the spot. Sure enough, 10 minutes later, when we were walking to the car, she pointed to a neighbor’s purple SUV and said “Look, that’s the same color as my crayon!” She knew it. She just didn’t like being tested.
I’ve started changing what I ask at check-ins, too. Instead of opening with “what is Mia working on academically?” I ask “what has she been excited about this week?” That gets me way more useful information, and it reminds me that curiosity is more important at this age than memorizing numbers. I also took the local parent Facebook group off my phone’s home screen. I still check it once a week for lost water bottle posts, but I don’t scroll through the brag posts anymore—most people don’t post the 20 minutes of tantrums over toast, just the photo of their kid tracing their name. It’s not an accurate picture.
I still have moments where I spiral. Last week, I saw a mom at the playground bragging that her 3-year-old could read three-letter words, and I stood there for five minutes wondering if I was letting Mia fall behind. But that night, Mia brought home three worms in a mason jar she’d gotten permission to bring home for our backyard garden. I almost told her we couldn’t keep them—they’d get all messy, what was I going to do with a jar of worms? But I got an old lid from the recycling bin, helped her poke holes in it with a screwdriver, and we put the jar on our back porch. She checks it every morning before breakfast.
We still haven’t worked out all the kinks with my expectations. I still check the CDC milestone app once a month when I’m bored waiting for a meeting. But I don’t ask Ms. Rosa for extra worksheets anymore, and I don’t stress when Mia comes home with dirt under her nails and no paper craft to hang on the fridge. Right now, that feels like enough.
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