Life is rushing by at such a furious pace it’s too easy for families to be swept along unawares. I am referring to the way we swallow wholesale the arguments for globalisation, technology, and education enrichment programmes. We dignify some of these ideas with false claims about accelerated learning, and justify our anxieties by saying we merely want our kids to realise their ‘full potential.’

All too often, in our hurry to make their growing-up years special, we unwittingly conform to the ways of the world, and rob our children of the simple joys of childhood. What’s wrong with ‘normal’ then?

I think of my own carefree days as a young boy in Alor Star hunting down caterpillar and cicak in the garden. As a preschooler, my parents put me through a Chinese language kindergarten that strangely, left no lasting impressions. I remember however, sitting on the kindly principal’s lap, in tears, and nursing a bump on my head, deservedly perhaps, for standing in the way of a missile launched by a fellow student.

My father was a civil servant who knew nothing about overtime, but had the sense to take his family on day trips and picnics now and then. Didn’t read much to us too, though he blew the harmonica when the fancy struck. But we lived in a home with books, encyclopedias, magazines – TIME, LIFE, Finding Out – and sibling and friends who resisted any attempts to band together as the Five Find-Outers or Secret Seven. We didn’t travel, but I constructed my own worlds – SimCity, without computers! – maps of make-believe island cities with their own topography, climatic conditions, oceans, military and industries.

Today, the load of activities we impose upon our children is simply astounding – so they can come out of their shyness, improve their memory, or simply for the sake of ‘exposure.’ Music, dance, kumon, language, IT, reading competence, art, drama, karate, etc. Even if these kids don’t know what hit them, I know what all that makes me feel – deprived. How odd that when many of us started to homeschool,it was to provide an environment that encourage self-directed learning at a child’s own pace.

Which simply begs the question: who’s setting the pace now? It’s all very good fun (if you can afford it), and I’m certain our kids do have a great time all in, but what’s it all about?

David Elkind, Professor of Child Study and Senior Resident Scholar at Tufts University, calls it ‘miseducation.’ With reference particularly to preschoolers who are hurried to master skills way ahead of their age, Dr Elkind warns that when we start them on a regiment of academics, swimming, gymnastics, or ballet before they are ready, we are courting disaster:

“We put them at risk for short-term stress and long-term personality damage for no useful purpose. There is no evidence that such early instruction has lasting benefits, and considerable evidence that it can do lasting harm.”

He goes on to add that all this hurrying is really about us, never about our children. It’s all about getting a leg up over and above the competition isn’t it? Social pressure dressed up as holistic education.

Sadly, we forget Jesus’ words to his disciples when questions about greatness arose: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” There is something wrong when we spend so much time and effort doing the reverse instead, manipulating and molding compliant children to change and become like us, miniature copies of grasping, fretful, insecure adults.

I am not saying that any of these great activities are bad in themselves. But we certainly need to stop being pushy, see that our children are indeed ready or interested, and that we’re not unconsciously compensating for our own adult needs. Speed kills. If our children are in danger of miseducation, it’s time to slow down and review life in the fast lane. For our children’s sake, and for ours.

By David BC Tan
July 16, 2002