Psychomotorik and Logopaedie (which are the Swiss-German equivalent to Occupational, Art, Movement, Music and Speech therapy) are very mainstream and common in the Swiss school system.


The therapist has the training and skills to take a very 'holistic' approach - getting to know the child individually and doing some very generic testing then working on some strategies that can support the child's self-confidence and specific skills.


My sister is a researcher in developmental psychology in Australia, she says that around 80% of intervention is simply the positive of doing 'something' instead of doing 'nothing. Only about 20% is what could be potentially measured as 'good' therapy. It's very hard to actually measure a therapy and decide what is 'effective' compared to a different option. But the difference between doing 'nothing' and 'doing something' is key.


In my experience, going along with the teacher's suggestion sets up a very positive cycle anyway - the teacher is seeing your child in a group of children possibly more hours per week than you do - and they have their own experience and training that is very specific to children of that age. They generally want the best for all children (you need to trust this, otherwise, why send them to school?) - and they generally know what is going to help the child to be most successful in the school system.


As others have said, there is zero stigma for sending kids, it's very normal, and usually a first suggestion for any kids who stand out from the crowd - especially kids from non-Swiss/non-German backgrounds.


It's not just an opportunity to work on specific skills, it's also a 1:1 language lesson. For my third child the psychomotorik was actually very helpful at that age to get him to pay attention, follow directions and trust the adult in German. Unfortunately he had an earlier negative experience with a German speaking caregiver in Krippe, so he had some fear/anxiety when being given instructions in German. The psychomotorik helped him simply in having 'fun' with someone who spoke German to him.


I am also an experienced early childhood teacher. My experience is that parents do generally avoid or deny a first indication that their child's development is not 'typical'. Some of this is/may be cultural, language or other things that may be simply that the teacher does not 'click' with the child, but the first thing the teacher needs then is a second 'professional' opinion, and the psychomotorik or logopaedie is the right point of referral for them.



There is also the school psychologist, if it's more complex, but they can also do only basic testing and coordinate appointments between the teacher and parent, and then they will refer if needed to a specialist.


The advantage of using the system is that the school/Gemeinde pays. There are plenty of parents 'outside' the school system who pay for sport, music, art, tutoring etc, out of their own pocket. And from my sister's point of view, these are also 'interventions' which can help the child's success at school.


Eg. parents in my town often send kits to Judo if they are being bullied to build their self-esteem and strength., to football or 'pfadi' to support their social, team and language skills....

It was suggested my kindergarten son attend a few Logopädie sessions to improve his “r” sounds. We did this but I personally think it was a waste of time. We attended the lessons until my son didn’t want to go anymore.
I will never really be able to assess if those lessons helped my son’s speech or not but by the second grade, he was fine.

My teacher also mentioned my son might be overly active and should consider alternative medicine. I smiled, thanked her and ignored her advice. I personally felt my son just had a lot of energy but it would resolve itself with time. It did.

__________________
Faith isn't about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.

You contradict yourself

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i was diagnosed with ADD when I was a toddler. Confirmed when I was in primary school. (as an adult, I am still suffering/enjoying the condition -- it is NOT a disease, it is a condition, that might trigger behavioral (response) disorders!)

The way of handling it at that time by my parents, after the first 6 months of psychologist support? (for them, and for me) -- Discipline, a lot of hours invested in keeping my head and hands busy (studying, learning how to do things - from basic tasks at my dad's work, to any cooking with mom, or in general, doing things with me - not involving TV), and a lot of extra-curricular activities (music, painting, sports, you name it). I will NEVER thank them enough for all the time and effort they invested on me. The R-word was never mentioned, because...it did not exist at that time.

So, there is a way, and does not need to be difficult, it is just investing on the child. If you cannot give her the time and support, then professional help is the best option.

Some of my friends have now children with similar conditions (ADD), Asperger's syndrome, or with extremely high IQ. They are also heavily investing their time at home, so the child performs 'normally' in the school. (notice the 'normally', means within the norm...i.e. with a sense of average).

No no no, I know it's a common fear of many foreign parents here but IMO you should accept the offer without any doubts. The extra-therapy will not negatively impact your child in future years. He will be judged by his progress and abilities, it is not like a label stuck on his forehead and that will be it for the rest of his life. Breath, your child is on good hands.

My family had the same experience. My kid was sent both to Ergotherapie und speech therapy - for stuttering (although he only seemed to stutter with the kindergarten teacher).

It seemed like half the class was in some or other kind of therapy. My wife and I speculated various reasons for what seemed to be us to be an extreme about of therapy...
- The schools have lots of resources and want to help everyone they can.
- They want to make sure they catch everything early, as a little effort early saves a lot later.
- They simply have hired a lot of therapists and want to make sure they have enough work.
- They are very concerned with being blamed for missing something and they error on the side of sending more (rather than fewer) kids for additional therapy.

Whatever the reason... your situation is what I would call 'common' for switzerland.
I could have used the word normal, but I chose common.

Hi Pomme, our 3 kids had attended some therapies in the past. What I found very helpful for us — we asked the therapist to describe to us exactly what was wrong and needed correction. We also asked to give us some timeline to understand the progress, which we could follow together. Most of the time this approach was very helpful, but we did reject a couple of therapies when the therapist could not explain clearly what was wrong.

We had the "hand motor skills" thing. We enrolled our son in guitar lessons.

Ours had that too. The problem was he just hated colouring in pictures - it wasn't that he couldn't do it.

Give him a blank piece of paper and some pens though and you could see there was nothing wrong with his motoric skills.

We also had one teacher signalling problems with attention but as soon as the next grade came, and with it a teacher who captivated kids, stimulated them and challenged them before they got bored instead of treating them as small babies and speaking very very slowly, the spacing out disappeared.

Yes, we have the same problem...I was surprised to hear about the problems with "fine motor skills" as she's very good at drawing and building stuff from lego pieces for hours on... But then, looking more carefully I think the teacher had/has a point. Sometimes it's more difficult to spot these problems when the child is excelling at stuff they like. I don't think they're sending kids to therapy for absolutely nothing. But that's just my opinion.