Educating Our Children

I've mentioned here that my boy's in his 3rd year of school.  He started going to school when he was barely 2 years old.  He's studying in a progressive learning pre-school where each lesson is individualized per child.  He knows the letters even before he started school.  He loves numbers and can already identify most of the shapes. 

This year I want to see him learn more.  He's now starting to read 3-letter words.  He actually can read "a cat sat on a cot" and comprehend what it means.  The teachers are still continously amazed with my little one's cognitive skills and memory, as the hubs and I.  I feel though that he could do more, like count up to 100 or know when to use "is" or "are".

We do try to augment the learnings from school.  Like we teach him addition, as well as the difference between "he/she/his/her".  And when we read him a story, we make him read the simple words. 

A, a friend, whose son is my son's classmate and friend, is contemplating moving his son to a traditional school.  Mainly because she's concerned with the lack of curriculum at the current school.  I somehow also see where she's coming from.  Our kids' tuition doesn't come cheap, so we should be getting our money's worth.  Besides we do work hard so we'll able to send our kids to good schools.

On the one hand, my husband and I agreed that we don't want to stress our son too early.  He's still 4 anyway, they will all catch up.  Both of us came from public elementary and we've done quite well.  We are of the opinion too that education also depends on the child.  Even when you give them the best one can afford, if they really don't have any interest in it, then all will go to waste. 

So what's best in educating children then?  Who knows, right?  But for now, I would go by seeing my child happy and learn along the way.  He needs to enjoy being a kid, running around, discovering things and laughing a lot.