My son going into Grade 5 is a picky eater so his lunches for the past 5 years mostly consisted his most go to favorite meal, pasta usually it was macaroni or something of similar size with alfredo sauce in a thermos. I know sandwiches and things along those lines are common staples because it's easy to make, cheap, and requires no heating up. He isn't a sandwich guy so pasta it was. Only this past year during his grade 4 year did he finally say he was getting a little bored so on some days he asked for fried rice or some other rice dish in his thermos instead. As for snacks he isn't a big fruits and veggie guy so it was whatever peanut free store bought snack he liked which changed year to year. This past year was mainly Z bars (kids version of cliff bars) and then we'd rotate other snacks like chips ahoy, ritz cheese crackers etc

As for the comment about shit coming back full, pretty true lol. I'd say 50% of the time it looked like his lunch was completely untouched and then the other 50% of the time either finished or partially eaten. If it looked like it was untouched I just make him eat it as his after school meal. I don't know if all schools do it it the same by at my sons they have eat time first for a certain amount of time followed by play, you can't just leave and go play during eating time but he's mostly busy talking with his friends which cuts into his eating time.

I probably should be quite concerned. Mine's 20 months now and still hasn't even said something basic like "ma ma". When I call out to him, he responds half the time, only if he's in the mood to acknowledge where the sound came from. But he doesn't know his own name.

We already scheduled a specialist so we'll see how that goes...

While early development can be highly variable it's always better to be safe than sorry and it matters in two ways: 1) How long stuff takes and 2) Getting access to great services you didn't realise you could get.

Point 1: My BIL's 3.5y daughter got diagnosed with autism about 6 months ago and they didn't start to ask for help till she was about 2 years old but the process to get to see specialists is really slow and it took a year from start to finish and then they've got to apply for funding and then search for a daycare that supports autistic kids etc. It was all super stressful and took way longer to figure out than expected and it took longer to get actual help (therapists etc) than one would imagine.

Point 2: When my daughter was about 4-5 months old my oncologist cousin was looking at her photos and got concerned that her head shape was unusually narrow. We ended up getting a great paediatrician who took a closer look and confirmed that it was normal but just getting access to a paediatrician was game changing towards understanding our daughter's development - she was just so much more knowledgable than our family doctor and her coaching and feedback to my wife and I has been so incredibly valuable in my daughter's development. Much less anxiety about what's happening and more confidence in what we're doing. We don't NEED to see her but getting access has been great.

Don't get too worried bro, my nephew basically didn't talk until he was 3, just made random sounds but if we said stuff to him and asked him if he understood he'd nod his head and ignore us.

Now he's 11 and never shuts up yelling YouTube phrases and he's a math genius... spends most of his time with my Dad walking around the nature park talking about physics calculations.

We were home eating dinner and my son and keeps saying dick at the dinner table. Where did you learn that? Did someone at daycare say that?

"No, was in a song in the car on the way to daycare" was his response

I was like.... What.... I vetted the songs there's no bad words!

After a while he went dick, dick dick dick.... and it clicked for me combining his beat with what I remembered to be listening in the car

I was listening to Tokyo drift in the car. Vetted the lyrics already. But he misheard drift as dick......

It’s possible he didn’t mishear it. It’s like they hear “drift” and in repeating the sound, it comes out as “dick”.

Took us some time to figure out what he was saying, but my son would say “honors” when he meant “orange”, and “doctor nation” for “decoration”.

My niece would say 'shit' for 'fish', so that was a hoot.

"here grandpa, eat some shit!"

1 month update: he speaks! :)

Category 1 - consistent and proactive

1) Mama (“muh-maaaaah”)

2) Dada (“deh-deh”)

3) bear (“beh-ah”)

4) car (“gah”)

5) ball (“boh”)
6) up (“ahh-puh!”)



Category 2 - consistent but needs prompting

7) Yeh-yeh [paternal grandpa] (“yeh-yeh”)

8) Maa-maa [paternal grandma] (“muh-muh” ... not the right low-tone at all, but we'll take it)

9) Gong-gong [material grandpa] (“guhng-guhng”)



Category 3 - not yet consistent (sound might not be attached to meaning)

10) down (“BAAAH!”)

11) yes (“yeh!”)

12) no (“nah!”)



Category 4 - not quite sure what's going on with this one... super-consistently says the wrong words lol we think he might just be messing with grandma
13) Poh-poh [maternal grandma] (“muh-muh”)

---

He's able to understand and point to: "head", "eyes", "ears", "mouth", and "foot"!

What a stressful couple of weeks up to the point he started showing signs. I just luckily happened to have 2 weeks off to spend all day with him and really focused on showing / demonstrating stuff to him, and coincidentally he was ready to learn. Glad he's not deaf-mute lol.

So you don't need the speech therapist anymore? I'm glad that rock is off your chest


Who's kid started kindergarten today?

The pediatrician is still getting him a hearing test just in case, but ya the speech therapy I think isn't needed for the moment.

Next thing I need to figure out is how to stop this guy from throwing stuff at ppl. He has a hell of an arm for a 16 m/o, and the last time he hit me with a toy car it still hurts a week later lol. We have that baby coming in a few months ><.

Mine did but "started" feels like a stretch of the term - the first week is just an hour a day, then it's a parent potluck on Monday, then it's 2 hours, 2 hours, 3 hours and finally 4 hours before we go full time on the 16th.

What a fricking drag and they only notified parents a week before school started of this schedule so most parents can't take time off work (I'm mostly ok).

Daycare & kindergarten were like that -- gradual entry. I seem to think that even for grade 1 at our school, it is gradual entry for the first week as well.

1 hr the first day. Then just the morning for the rest of the week.

Every school seems to be different.

Mine didn't start until today. It was one hour. One hour tmr. 3 hours on Friday. Class ends at 1:45 on Monday. Ends at 2:30 on Tuesday. Full day on Wednesday next week.

We knew the schedule before hand and wife took time off. That meant our HK trip has to be shorter in Oct/Nov because she doesn't have enough time off.

16th!?!? That's brutal mine like many others starts full days next Wednesday so really it's 1 week of gradual. Not a big deal due to my flexibility from work but I can appreciate some people have to juggle like crazy or even take time off just to accommodate but 16th is some wild shit like come on most of these kids have been going to full time something for the past 2 years just let them start already.

Awesome times. I was to be taking care of my son today and work was expected to be slow. Of course I have adhoc stuff come up and am actually busy.

Ugh, this gradual entry stuff is so painful...

My coworker just told me about his recent experience with daycare and his son. The caregivers told him "We don't do the gradual entry thing. Your child will cry. In a week, he will be fine."

So day 1, he dropped off his son (then cried by himself in the car) for the full duration. Of course his son cried, but in a week he was fine. :p

Meanwhile, day 4 of school and my two kids are sick at home already. :flamemad:

The daycare method fits better for most kids. The more you stick around, the harder it is for them to let go, especially if they are expecting you to be present after day 1

How often did you have to go to the sessions and how long?
I'm starting to explore the idea of seeing a speech therapist but need to choose one. There's a lot available around my area.

But also not sure what to expect and how to coordinate with my work schedule..

Yeah, the timing for me couldn't be any worse as I'm right in the midst of 2025 planning at work and I'm just slammed. My kid's been in daycare for 4 years so transitioning is easy for her - the lack of structure the past week has actually been bad for all parties involved.

Today, there's no class at all and instead there's a potluck in the middle of the day for parents to meet each other. That's well meaning and all but c'mon let's do that a month in once everyone is settled in and give me some notice to plan for it.

Fuck that's rough. Which school is this? It's not private?

Haven't gone yet - the pediatrician wanted to wait and see for a couple weeks to see about progress. With this development, the speech therapy referral was put on hold.

I did drop in to a parent-oriented language development workshop that was really helpful right around when I spent those two weeks with my kid. It was taught by a speech therapist, and was super super helpful. None of it was surprising, but helped to revise a lot our behavior that'd been incorrectly modeled by my parents and in-laws. Turns out they were insisting flat-out wrong information ("we owe all our success to TV! they learned everything they know by watching Sesame Street!" and "everyone just talk to each other, don't worry about it. they actually absorb the words from us.": it is in spite of this, that kids learn language, not because of it). And yeah many kids will just figure it out, but for some, this isn't their strength area.

Some examples:
1) Rather than asking them questions, instead converting into comments:
Instead of "is that your firetruck" -> "that's your favorite firetruck!"
Instead of "what color is this?" -> "I like your blue hat!"
Instead of "what's this?" -> "oh it's a yummy apple!"

2) Say to the kid what they would, if they could.

3) Participate in what they're already doing, and add to that. Rather than pulling them into something else, on your terms. This will maximize their interest in what you're up to, and then they're more open to learning in the moment.

4) Recognizing that kids learn through interaction not through observation. I.e. just watching someone talking on a screen, or having nearby people just talking to each other in front of them, isn't nearly as effective as having face-to-face eye-to-eye social interaction with them. Specifically, having that social interaction within the context of what they're doing, in that moment.

Stuff like that. The speech therapist was like "this is largely all we'd actually do, if your child was at our session."

I have the slides in PDF - pm me if anyone wants it, I can send via email!

Inman in Burnaby. It's a public French immersion school. Their seem to prefer gradual entry for all classes - even their grade 1-7s didn't get started full time till today.

I would be interested. I sent you a pm.

Emailed. Btw your PM inbox is full :).

Whoops, I thought my inbox had room for one more message. But sent messages going out also count as part of the total count. So when I PM'ed you, my own sent message made my inbox full. lol

Thanks for sending the slides. Much appreciated!