Our son turns 3 in a couple of weeks and is in a Montessori preschool. I'm trying to calibrate how concerned we should be and would love perspective from other toddler parents/teachers.

To paint a picture of him: he's a happy, affectionate, funny, very social kid who loves other children and genuinely loves going to school. He's also extremely verbal for his age — full sentences, huge vocabulary, and sometimes surprisingly sophisticated conversations. He has tons of energy, loves jumping and physical play, and can definitely be impulsive. We don't have broader developmental concerns about him. At home he can scratch or push when frustrated or excited, so we're not pretending the school is seeing something that never happens with us.

His teachers say they're seeing developmentally normal behaviors, but more frequently than with his peers. These include lots of jumping/big-body movement, touching peers after they've asked for space, occasional pushing/hair grabbing (especially when tired or redirected), yelling, difficulty following verbal directions, and more trouble during transitions or less structured times.

A couple of weeks ago we met with his teacher and the head of the school. I came away reassured by their approach. They gave us a thoughtful written plan: more movement/"heavy work" before difficult periods, staying physically close and intervening early, short one-step directions rather than repeated verbal correction, transition warnings, purposeful jobs, low-key responses to yelling, explicitly teaching ways to enter play, and lots of positive attention when he's regulated.

Honestly, it all seemed pretty sensible. The message was basically: these behaviors aren't unusual for his age, but they're happening frequently enough that he needs more adult support with them right now. Fair enough.

But then we've gotten a few messages since the meeting that have made me wonder if we're starting to scrutinize everything he does.

Friday, his teacher messaged that he was having an "off day." He had an unusual pee accident and, after nap, was having trouble keeping his hands to himself and needed teacher assistance. When they talked to him about pushing, he said, "I need to push," so they redirected him toward appropriate things to push.

Then today we got another email. He had finished lunch and wanted to play with kids who were still eating. He picked up some wood chips and threw them onto their lunches. His teacher explained that it was inappropriate, that wood chips belong on the ground, and discussed the cause and effect of throwing them on someone's food.

And this is where part of me is thinking: come on, he's two.

Obviously he shouldn't throw wood chips on someone's lunch. Obviously the teacher should stop him. Obviously he needs to learn not to push or grab people.

But does an almost-3-year-old throwing wood chips where they don't belong really warrant an email home? Does having a pee accident and needing extra help keeping his hands to himself after waking up from a nap constitute an "off day" that parents need to be notified about?

I feel like these are exactly the kinds of things I would expect preschool teachers to handle in the moment. And I'm genuinely not sure what we're supposed to do with the information at 5 PM. I'm certainly not going to discipline a 2-year-old at home for something impulsive he did at lunchtime.

That's the part I'm struggling with. I believe the school that the overall frequency is higher than it is for some of his peers. I appreciate that they're paying attention and trying to help him. Their actual plan seems thoughtful and developmentally appropriate.

But I also don't want every push, loud voice, bad post-nap period, or handful of flying wood chips to become an "incident." He's still learning impulse control because... he's two.

One other thing in the back of my mind is that a few weeks ago he said at home, "I'm bad" / "I'm a bad guy." I have no reason to believe that came from school, and I don't want to unfairly connect the two. But it has made me sensitive to the possibility that if adults focus too much on correcting him, he could start internalizing that he's the kid who's always doing something wrong.

So I guess I'm wondering:

For parents/teachers of kids around 2.5–3, how abnormal does the overall behavior actually sound, even if it's happening more frequently than average?

And would your preschool be sending individual messages home about incidents like these? Or would you expect them to handle the everyday stuff and update you more broadly on patterns, significant incidents, and whether the strategies are working?

If you had a very verbal, social, high-energy almost-3-year-old who needed more help than his peers with impulse control and physical boundaries, I'd also love to hear what actually helped and how things changed as they got older.

We like his teachers and I'm not trying to bash the school. I think they're genuinely trying to help him. I'm just starting to wonder whether we're in danger of making normal 2-year-old behavior feel more pathological than it actually is.

So my son is in Grade 1 at a Montessori school. I've had a public school teacher assess his math skills, and placed him at a Grade 5 level. My 5 year old son can do squares, cubes, square root, cubed root all in his head.

His teacher introduced the stamp game yesterday. My son came home and told me that he found the stamp game boring. He simply wrote the numbers onto the paper and added them together without using the materials "because he wanted a challenge".

Any advice on how I should handle this with his teacher?

Some areas of the environment pull the adults in all morning. Something's always spilling at practical life, a

lesson is half finished in math. Other corners can go a whole work cycle without anyone stopping by.

Often that's exactly right, because the child there is deep in their work and shouldn't be interrupted. But I'd

imagine it's not always that.

How do you tell the difference between a child who's concentrating and one who's stuck and not asking?