ONLY THE BEST.

On the way home from market last Tuesday, Hannah and I found ourselves transfixed by the story they were playing on NPR. This BBC News correspondent had traveled to China to hear about their boarding preschools, and we listened to the program with our mouths entirely agape.Boarding. Preschools.It seemed these were schools where parents could send their children as early as three years old, and the kids would live there for twenty four hours a day. At age three! You will have to download the program to get the whole story––or read abut it here ––but when they talked to the parents, they truly believed not only was this going to help the kids, but it was going to teach their children "independence and life skills." They felt like this was what was best for their children's future.And that's when we remembered that the same reaction we were having––well, appall––was the reaction many people have when we tell them we're planning on homeschooling, on attachment parenting, on elimination communication, on breastfeeding past six months. There are people who think these activities ruin the child. Technically there is plenty of science to back up how beneficial these things are to children but conversely, the Chinese might say the same about their boarding preschools.So that's what we're up against as new parents. We're up against specialists and scientists and people who will tell you unequivocally that something like boarding school for a three year-old is good for them. Once the baby is born, we have to make a lifetime of decisions for him or her based on what? We don't have experience raising children all the way until adulthood. We have to rely on science, too. On other parent's experiences. On intuition. On our own specialists.Because as insane as boarding schools for three year-olds sounds to us, these parents are doing it for the better of the child (mostly––some were doing it because they were simply too busy to take care of them). So our plan is to read a lot, study a lot, think a lot and use our best judgement. We want the best for our child, too. Determining how to get there is the hard part.And, we also have a lot of great parents as readers. So you tell us––what has worked for you? What books? What tips? What advice? Lay it on us.- Jesse.