But at the time when my wife's maternity leave was over we had to make a decision. Should one of us stay home with my son Zachary or should we hire a nanny. I liked the idea of sending him to a school setting because I thought they were trained to take care of babies and pre k kids more than a nanny who might not be trained to take care of kids. So we decided that I would leave my job rather than spend most of my salary on putting my son in an all day program at 3 months old.
So there I was a stay at home dad to a 3-month old son. I was a little nervous because Zacky was my first child and I didn't have any nieces or nieces or nephews , but I did have first cousins who had kids and were great parents. I was around them a lot and learned what I could from them. Also at that point, I found out about and joined the NYC Dads Group, http://www.nycdadsgroup.com. I was there that I learned what classes were around my that I could take my son to. One of the first programs I found out about is a diverse community of more than 850 members that gives fathers an opportunity to socialize and support each other as we navigate parenthood together.
They hold meet-ups for at museums, parks, zoos, parent-and-me classes and many other venues around the city. They also also organize evening events for dads to socialize, learn from each other and meet experts in fatherhood and parenting. Most events are free or low-cost. I become emerged in the group, going to their weekly meet ups, helping them get PR. I helped them get featured in New York and national media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg/Business Week, the Today show, The CBS Sunday Morning Show with Charles Osgood and Fox News etc.
I was introduced to programs some of which I enrolled my son in, including Gymboree, located at 73rd Street between Broadway and West End. My son started there at 3 months and remained there until he started Kindergarten. He started taking three classes a week. Eventually Gymboree realized that they had a great opportunity to attract parents who didn't want to fork over $25-$50,000 for pre K and started a program called School Skills, which was a drop off program. At first I was concerned about dropping him off and how he'd react. But he was totally fine. He loved it. We enrolled him starting when he was 2. That would give me the chance to go to the gym, or shopping at Trader Joe's which was hard to do with a son who liked to grab things from his stroller. After Gymboree we enrolled him in Swim Jim, which taught swimming to babies and toddlers. He still asks me to take him to Swim Jim which has programs for kids in kindergarten. He was also in great programs at the 92nd Street Y, soccer and gymnastics.
I realized that most pre k schools had programs which I would duplicate so I signed by son up for classes around the Upper West Side that I thought matched the curriculum at those schools. When my daughter was born at the first chance we did the same. She was in Gymboree on Monday Wednesdays and Fridays and then Tuesdays and thursdays she took, dance at the 92nd street Y and Art Farm, a great program where children are introduced to art as well as animal care.
My son is happy at a charter school in Harlem called Harlem Hebrew Language Charter School, which contrary to my thinking has a large non jewish population. They teach about Israel and hebrew but also general subjects he would learn at a public school. We applied to other schools in the neighborhood, and liked one of them PS 333, but decided on Harlem Hebrew because we wanted him to learn Hebrew. I'm going to have a blog post on how to apply to kindergarten soon
Now we are going to have to start thinking about pre K for my daughter, we will try and apply to the public pre k programs in our neighborhood which we didn't get into for my son Zachary, but the Mayor Bill de Blasio promised Pre K for all, I have my doubts about how all the kids will get into pre K, but time will tell.
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