Archive for the ‘Child Development’ Category
13 April 2010
Baby brains at risk
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
Some years ago I picked up an article in TIME expressing concern over the driven child, children – and babies – pushed to artificially pump up their IQ. Looking back (the piece was first published in 2001!), this disturbing trend has continued and many homeschoolers with young children or infants have not been spared either. Tell me if this piece is outdated or unfounded. Titled The Quest For A Super Kid, here’s an excerpt and link to the whole article:
THE PHENOMENON OF THE DRIVEN CHILD has been coming for a while, but it was in 1994 that the new breed was truly born. That was the year the Carnegie Corp. published a 134-page report describing a “quiet crisis” among U.S. children, who it argued were being ill served by their twin-career parents and their often failing school systems. The report’s findings were worrisome enough, but buried in its pages were two disturbing paragraphs warning that schoolkids might not be the only ones suffering; babies could be too. Young brains are extremely sensitive to early influences, the report cautioned, and the right — or wrong — stimuli could have a significant impact on later development.
Those paragraphs went off like a grenade in the otherwise unremarkable study. The press ran alarming stories about blameless children being left behind. The White House called a conference on childhood development. Parents snapped up news of both, hoping it wasn’t too late to undo whatever damage they had unwittingly done to their kids. “Every parent began to worry,” says John Bruer, president of the McDonnell Foundation and author of the book The Myth of the First Three Years. “They thought, ‘If I don’t have the latest Mozart CD, my child is going to jail rather than Yale?’”
In order to make up for their feared lapses, parents indeed started buying the approved kinds of music — and a whole lot more. A study conducted by Zero to Three, a nonprofit research group, found that almost 80% of parents with a high school education or less were assiduously using flash cards, television and computer games to try to keep their babies’ minds engaged.
Child-development experts, however, consider these sterile tools inferior to more social and emotional activities such as talking with or reading to children. These specialists agree that the only thing shown to optimize children’s intellectual potential is a secure, trusting relationship with their parents. Time spent cuddling, gazing and playing establishes a bond of security, trust and respect on which the entire child-development pyramid is based. “We have given social and emotional development a back seat,” says UCLA’s Tyler, “and that’s doing a great disservice to kids and to our society.”
Trying to pump up children’s IQs in artificial ways may also lead to increased stress on the kids, as the parents’ anxiety starts to rub off. By four or five years old, the brains of stressed kids can start to look an awful lot like the brains of stressed adults, with increased levels of adrenaline and cortisol, the twitchy chemicals that fuel the body’s fight-or-flight response. Keep the brain on edge long enough, and the changes become long-lasting, making learning harder as kids get older.
But the fact is, the kids don’t have to feel so pressured — and neither do their parents. It is true, as the marketers say, that a baby’s brain is a fast-changing thing. Far from passively sponging up information, it is busy from birth laying complex webs of neurons that help it grow more sophisticated each day. It takes anywhere from a year to five years, depending on the part of the brain, for this initial explosion of connections to be made, after which many of them shut down and wither away, as the brain decides which it will keep, which new ones it will need and which it can do without. During this period, it’s important that babies get the right kinds of stimulation so their brains can make the right decisions. The right kinds of stimulation, however, may not be the ones people think they are.
Asked in a recent study what skills children need in order to be prepared for school, parents of kindergartners routinely cited definable achievements such as knowing numbers, letters, colors and shapes. Teachers, however, disagree. Far more important, they say, are social skills, such as sharing, interacting with others and following instructions. Kids who come to school with a mastery of these less showy abilities stand a better chance of knocking off not only reading and writing when they are eventually presented but everything else that comes along as well. “Intelligence is based on emotional adequacy,” says child-development expert T. Berry Brazelton. “The concept of emotional intelligence is at the base of all this.”
[Read the rest of the article here]
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Other related posts that might interest you:
A child’s work is play
Life in the fast lane
Finding balance in a hurried world
Preschool for a headstart?
13 January 2010
Who’s minding our child minders?
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
With all the talk about expanding preschool enrolment in the country is anyone asking what’s being done about the danger of child abuse and how to keep these centres safe? While the growing numbers of reported child abuse did not necessarily take place in kindergartens and playschools, recent news of an alleged sex offender operating a kindy raised alarm.
In Malaysia the thriving business of kindergartens, playschools, and daycare for kids provide an invaluable service catering to young parents whose busy careers leave little time for junior. The Child Care Centre Act regulates this army of childminders although kindergartens and nurseries operated by the Education Ministry are governed by a different Act.
Since its implementation, this provision requires home-based centres that receive less than 10 children and any institution that has more than 10 children to be registered before they are allowed to operate. Unfortunately enforcement is so lax and the need so great few parents suspect their children may be left in the care of strangers in unregistered centers. A report in The Nutgraph looks at the cabinet-approved Child Protection Policy (CPP) rolled out in July 2009 and examines how implementation falls short of its intentions:
Notwithstanding the government’s efforts, PH Wong (child advocate and Childline Malaysia project director) says a large number of childcare centres and kindergartens are still not registered with the authorities. She says the number of registered centres has almost halved from five years ago. This means that many children are attending unregistered centres.
And even for registered centres, there is no formal accreditation. “We have been pushing for a national quality accreditation system for early childhood centres for more than 10 years, but that has not been implemented yet,” says PH Wong, (child advocate and Childline Malaysia project director).
(United Nations Children’s Fund representative to Malaysia) Youssouf Omar says that parents and guardians must play their part and ensure they do not put children in situations where they could be at risk.
“Parents and guardians should be proactive and ask to check the centre’s licence, as well as ask whether it has a formal child protection policy. In addition, [they must also be] aware of changes in children’s behaviour and look out for signs that the children may not be well protected or cared for in the centre,” explains Youssouf.
By requesting to see a centre’s child protection policy, he says it would create a demand for such policies. “By boycotting places that are not registered, parents can influence the practices of childcare centres and kindergartens,” he adds.
Read the whole story here.
For a brief write-up about kindergarten licensing procedure go here.
15 October 2009
All eyes on preschool education…
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development; Preschool.
Politics and by-elections grab so much of our attention some of us may have missed this remark by the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who is also our Education Minister. It appears the Ministry of Education is concerned that a mere 67% of children starting Year One have had a preschool education.
A news report had the DPM saying MOE was looking to increase preschool enrolment up to 87% by 2012. One way of doing it would be to make preschool education “a part of the education system.”
This was a follow-up to an off-the-cuff comment a month earlier that the Education Ministry may want all pre-schools to be absorbed into the national education system – take a deep breath now – to boost young children’s grasp of English.
“My idea is that we should make learning of English at pre-schools a thrust in the early education process,” he said.
Note that this came after the government announced it was reversing its 6-year old English for Science and Math policy.
It is not clear how preschool is to be absorbed into the school system or whether it would mean mandatory preschool for all Year One children; but it is this sort of news that raises red flags.
I’m sure the MOE means well. After all, the rest of the developed world is ahead of Malaysia with regard to education and we’re following their lead. Should preschool become mandatory, Malaysia would be in good company with countries that have lowered school starting age (England, Scotland, Netherlands) or have integrated early childcare and preschool education with compulsory primary schooling (Sweden, Greece, Northern Ireland). Sweden for instance is often held up as an exemplar with the highest quality of early childcare and preschool education offered by a state, including a well-developed after-school childcare system for school-age children (well, so UNICEF declares).
Is this supposed to make us feel good? 
It might interest some of you to know that I previously opposed talks of mandatory preschool in an NST article I wrote way back in 2000! Looking at it again, my views have not changed. Of course, since then more research have surfaced questioning the mistaken notion of separating children from their own parents at an ever younger and younger age. The prospect is just too horrible to imagine for parents who have had to deal with 2 or 3-year old kids traumatised by preschool education! Whatever happened to schooling readiness?
A UC Berkeley/Stanford report in particular finds that the earlier a child enters a preschool center, the slower his or her pace of social development. Cognitive skills in pre-reading and math do improve when children first enter a preschool program (at ages two and three) but this happens to the detriment of social and emotional development.(Read more here)
I do believe there are many ECE teachers who are wonderfully committed to helping young children succeed, and I say keep up the good work. Yes, make schooling – preschool, playschool, kindergarten, primary school, etc – affordable and accessible. Do everything possible to ensure care and education is available especially to at-risk children and disadvantaged families. But give parents a choice. Our children don’t need a nanny when they already have their own mother and father.
Related posts on preschool and early education:
A child’s work is play
Preschool for a headstart?
Kicked out of kindy
Life in the fast lane
Finding balance in a hurried world
8 October 2009
Playing with infants and toddlers
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
PLAYING IT UP
by Jeanie Hurley
Playing is the most natural thing in the world, but there’s much more to it than just having fun. Jeanie Hurley investigates the role of play in development from newborn baby to boisterous pre-schooler to see why playing is never a waste of time.
CHILDREN JUST LOVE TO PLAY and the great news is that play is good for them. From four months old a baby will smile and giggle when you make funny sounds or cuddle them up close. By eight months they’ve grasped the ‘where’s it gone?’ theory and are delighted by peek-a-boo games.
Early days
Dr Julie C Coultas, a social psychologist at East Sussex University, says playing has an essential role in children’s mental and physical development and as such says parents should see their role in helping babies and children play as ‘parental investment’. She explains that before 15 months the games should be led by the mother or carer with little peer interaction.
Liz Attenborough, from the National Literacy Trust, has helped launch a campaign to encourage parents to communicate with their babies. She believes what babies and young children learn from playing, equips them with valuable skills later on, and that it’s never too early to start. “Babies are born social and need an adult partner to develop their social skills. Playing involves being engaged in an enjoyable activity and you can begin playing with your baby as soon as she is conceived. Your baby will already be familiar with your voice if you talk to your bump while you’re pregnant, and you can start interacting now, when you feel the baby kick, gently tap back to see if you get a response.”
Development skills
Child development falls into the two main categories of physical and neurological. Physical skills involve both gross motor skills such as rolling over, crawling and walking, and fine motor skills such as hand-eye coordination, grasping objects, drawing and later writing. Sensory development is also physical and includes sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Intellectual and cognitive development centre on activity in the brain including use of language, smiling and giggling, imagination and working out. Our children’s emotional wellbeing also develops in the brain and comprises many areas such as self awareness, self esteem and the ability to interact with others. Playing in some form or another helps to refine these different areas of development in babies and young children.
Communication
Good communication makes for good and rewarding play, although in young children under two years this doesn’t necessarily mean having to speak with words. Facial expressions denoting surprise, pleasure, not knowing where something is and praise will all help your child find enjoyment in play. Talking to your toddler in simple language helps them learn to give their feelings expression. Use single words such as ‘Happy’, ‘Gone’, ‘Oh no’ right from the beginning.
How to help
Young children usually have short attention spans which adults can find frustrating. You can create a more beneficial atmosphere that encourages your little one to ‘stay with it’, by avoiding distractions such as the television or other people. If you lack confidence in how to play, start with a board book for a baby of around 6 months that you can look at together. Ask your son or daughter if they can see certain pictures and see if they can point to them. Your show them how, then let them try. Try covering things up with your hand to see if they can remember what’s there. As they get older you’ll notice how more perceptive they become. Simple games that have a clear cause and effect are good to being with.
As they grow
Psychologists agree that babies learn much through watching other babies and imitating their parents. Dr Coultas terms this ‘social pretend play’. She explains that from around 15 months a child is able to imitate, watch and comply with his mother’s suggestions, which means time to offer up plenty of ideas. Toddlers don’t actually play together properly until about 21 months when they being to learn independence. You should now take on the more passive role of spectator. Pretend tea parties are a favourite at about this age. At about 25-30 months your child will be able to develop a story with his friends. They love to mimic scenes from home, playgroup and television. From around three years of age children create pretend worlds together and enjoy embellishing them in greater detail as they get older. All this leads to the important social skill of the ‘theory of mind’, which simply means that they have now learnt that what they think isn’t always what others will think, and they are able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.
Age appropriate toys and games
0-3 months: Wind chimes, unbreakable mirrors (babies tend to look right 80% of the time so make sure you put any objects in their line of vision), high contrasting mobiles, cloth books
3-6 months: Baby play gyms, rattles, squeaky rubber toys, colourful teethers, socks with bells
6-9 months: Textured books, soft blocks to knock down, activity boards, toys that pop up when your baby pushes the button, balls – throw the ball and encourage your baby to crawl after it
9-12 months: Walker, rocker, toy, telephone, shape sorter, books with flaps, bucket and spade for natural sand play – your baby will love the texture
12-18 months: Simple puzzles such as cut-out circles and squares, stacking, pull toys for confident walkers; climbing frame, washable non-toxic crayons, ride-on vehicle, toy buggy
18-24 months: Musical instruments such as keyboards, drum, plastic tea set, play house or den (throw a blanket on the old baby gym), shopping trolley, gardening tools, building blocks
24-36 months: Illustrated books, dressing-up clothes, child-size household equipment, construction toys, eg Lego, wooden puzzles, dolls to undress
36 months +: Basic jigsaw puzzles, memory games such as snap, child-size pots and pans, plasticine, bats and balls, golf sets, reference books
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This article was previously published in Baby and Toddler Gear, Nov/Dec 2005 and can be accessed at The National Literacy Trust
6 October 2009
A child’s work is play
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
The child’s play is important in his development.
As a matter of fact, play for the small child is his work– a means of achieving
better and better skills to do the things he sees older children and adults do.
Raymond & Dorothy Moore (Better Late than Early)
IT WAS OUR OLDEST SON’S FIRST VISIT TO THE DENTIST, and there was a form to fill. He was 5 years old. When it came to the part that said OCCUPATION, Mom told him the word meant a person’s job or work. Without any hesitation he said, “My job is to play.”
Wisdom from the mouths of babes, as they say. Few people would object that children are meant to play and almost all experts agree that play is essential to their development. Without the benefit of playschool or kindergarten, our two boys played endlessly – by themselves, and with kids who occasionally visited.
They pulled out their buckets of Lego, emptied them on the carpet, built things, and knocked them down with glee. Whatever they could lay their hands on were transformed into fortresses and castles, props for tales of adventure and epic battles, interplanetary spacecraft, and improbable mazes or bridges for marbles and toy cars doing an Evel Knievel.
When they were a little older, I remember how they would pick a CD, choose a theatrical score, turn the volume up, and argue if the soundtrack was appropriately triumphant or tragic for the drama played out with their toy soldiers. If they were not at their board games or making things up, they were scrambling in the playground and clambering up monkey bars. After they learned to swim, we couldn’t keep them away from the pool. Often theirs were the only chatter and laughter you would hear because everyone else would be at school.
I can imagine why our boys were the envy of their relatives and neighbours. They inhabited a kind of Neverland without schoolmasters looking over their shoulders or a report card dangling over their heads. It needs be said that far from resembling Toys-R-Us, our home was relatively deprived – all our children had were a few board games, several buckets of Lego, a mixed-bag of plastic toy vehicles, soldiers and figurines (the PC came later, but that’s another story!).
Like all children, what they lacked in an abundance of stuff, they made up with a lot of imagination. All we parents did was to provide the necessary space and time, and also play with them. Tragically and despite our effusion of warm feelings at a child happily playing in a world of his own, more and more parents are beginning to have second thoughts.
Today increasing numbers of anxious parents are resorting to competence programmes to give junior a leg up. The proliferation of preschool courses to build a superkid or a superior mind are staggering. More troubling is the fact that the loss of childhood is uncritically accepted as a necessary price of academic advantage and social mobility.
David Elkind, the author and professor emeritus of Child Development at Tufts University calls this miseducation. Parents have been misled and misinformed, he says. In fact the eminent doctor concludes that all this hurrying is never about the child and all about the parents. Unfortunately much of the pressure put on young children is often a projection of adult insecurity and parental competition.
Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning. Early instruction miseducates, not because it attempts to teach, but because it attempts to teach the wrong things at the wrong time. When we ignore what the child has to learn and instead impose what we want to teach, we put infants and young children at risk for no purpose.
David Elkind (Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk)
I think we are not saying a young child should therefore forego any form of competence or academic instruction. It just means one has to take note of a child’s readiness and consider if any activity is developmentally appropriate. I’ll have more to say in a later post.
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Read more:
Here are two child development authorities whose books had a profound influence on my journey as a parent and a homeschooling father. You can’t go wrong reading their books. Check them out:
Dr David Elkind is a leading authority on child development and the author of several well-known books, including The Hurried Child and The Power of Play. Dr Elkind has a blog at Just Ask Baby.
Dr Raymond Moore and his wife Dorothy wrote the landmark book Better Late than Never and practically gave a new push to the homeschooling movement. Dr Moore passed away in 2007 while his wife Dorothy passed away in 2002.
Related posts:
My previous writings on the same topic-
Preschool for a head start?
Kicked out of kindy
Life in the fast lane
Finding Balance
22 June 2005
Kicked out of kindy
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
Take a look at this news report from the Baltimore Sun about the first nationwide research conducted by Yale University’s Child Study Center on preschool expulsion:
After surveying 52 state-financed prekindergarten programs in 40 states, the study found that about 10 percent of teachers had expelled at least one child in the previous year and a handful of those teachers had expelled as many as four children. The estimated total of students kicked out of preschool was 5,117 out of a total estimated enrollment of 766,907. In Maryland, about 38 of approximately 6,390 state-subsidized preschoolers were kicked out, for an expulsion rate that was below the national average.
The study also found that the likelihood of being expelled increased with age, as 4-year-olds were 50 percent more likely to be kicked out than 2- and 3-year-olds, and 5-year-olds were twice as likely to be expelled as 4-year-olds. Black children were twice as likely to be expelled as white or Latino children and five times more likely than Asian-Americans. Boys were expelled at more than four times the rate of girls. The researchers reported that children were expelled most frequently because of antisocial behavior, particularly aggression toward other children, such as kicking or biting.
Preschool/Pre-Kindergarten expulsion is not as uncommon as you think – even in Malaysia – and I know of parents who have had similar experiences and who finally decided to homeschool. One case involved a preschooler who was ADHD who obviously demanded more out of his Kindy than the teachers were prepared to provide. He was expelled from 3 other schools. Another was a mother (who’s now an unschooler) who couldn’t get her daughter’s Kindy to ease up on the academic in favour of a simpler curriculum.
In any case, I have my reservations about kindy anyway. My views are that children at the ages of 3 – 5 years are best nurtured at home. Why the hurry for pre-K and Kindy anyway? Expulsions are all about keeping pre-K and Kindys in the good books of parents and prospective students, which as a business proposition seems the way to do things. But for the child who is expelled, there is nothing but trauma, and possibly a long-term disdain for formal education or learning in general.
Whether early childhood education or kindergarten is necessary or not has been debated for years. Sheri Oden has published a book called, Into Adulthood: A Study on the Effects of Head Start which cites encouraging findings on a 17-year follow-up study on 622 adults who did or did not attend Head Start (using the HighScope Curriculum). Since I haven’t read the book, I can’t say much except that the study suggests effective outcomes involving children at risk and those from low-income homes.
I am not saying there is no place for pre-K or Kindys, because extenuating circumstances and a host of other factors do require specific attention. But I’d like to think they must be the exception and never the norm. Parents need to know that just because “everyone’s sending their kids to Kindy” does not make a done thing the better deal.
Meanwhile, the controversy rages.
26 November 2002
Beyond Good Intentions
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
[The following reflection grew out of a workshop on Theology of the Child organised by Baptist Theological Seminary (Nov 1 & 2), and a dialogue on (Nov 3), kindly put together by Penang homeschoolers. Both meetings were held on the island during the recent Deepavali break]
We had just finished introducing ourselves when a gentleman at the end of the table asked, “Your sons are both ‘normal.’ So why are you homeschooling?”
We get that quite a bit, usually from parents who assume that only ‘special’ kids need home education. At our dialogue on homeschooling held in Penang, a good number of the 12 adults present were parents of children with learning differences or disabilities.
I tried to explain that while homeschooling is probably one of the best things you could do for children with learning disabilities, it works just as well with any child. Perhaps even better. That’s because homeschool recognises that every child is special, each requiring individual attention that is so critical to learning. In a secure home where love abounds, habits of heart and mind find fertile ground to flower.
When we first started to educate Ethan and Elliot (turning 13 and 11 respectively) at home all these years ago, our primary concern then was the state of the education system. The horror stories were universal. Not knowing any other options, many of our friends and relations ushered their children through a wretched rite of passage, setting aside their better judgment while keeping their fingers crossed at the same time. Could there be another way, we asked?
Thankfully we were introduced to homeschooling, and to quote Robert Frost, taking the less traveled road has made all the difference.
7 years later, we’re more a family now than we could ever imagine. We have reclaimed childhood for our children, and I am happy to report that they are both imbued with a lively curiosity and love for learning. They’re no angels of course, but there is a depth of character that we find encouraging. Besides simply fulfilling our adult roles as teacher, we are humbled by what our children have to teach us as well.
All this came home afresh to me as we sat through a workshop on Theology of the Child held in the Baptist Theological Seminary in Batu Ferringhi, Penang. The 2-day dialogue preceded our homeschooling meet during that long festive weekend and thus provided new insights that confirmed personal convictions. While children and childhood are nettlesome to many parents, I saw how the Bible itself was unapologetic in their affirmation.
For instance, after making a study of situations featuring children in the gospels, Dr W.A Strange in his book ‘Children in the Early Church’ contends that, “The coming of the kingdom of God did not make children into adults, but affirmed their childhood.” Instead, they were held up as models for discipleship, he writes. Dr Strange also notes that “Jesus’ openness to children was for their own sake, not principally for their potential, and it was something unique to his ministry.” Now, there’s food for thought.
As participating theologians, teachers, pastors and care providers talked about the marginalisation of children, we questioned how the church – of all institutions! – continue to erect structures that put kids in their places without considering the negative signals they convey. The separation of children from adults (and their parents) in a worship service is one example, although there have been positive changes in recent times.
We also looked at how society (usually with the connivance of parents) view children as mere commodity to achieve personal ends. Is it any wonder so many fall through the cracks, sapped of all vitality and purpose? They join the ranks of the disillusioned who cannot reconcile belief with practice. Worse still, these same children grow up learning that ‘face’ matters more than faith.
On the other hand, there’s Jesus of whom Luke 2:52 declares, grew “in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.” When one looks at the broader context that includes v39, it is quite apparent those qualities were not birthed in the barrenness of good intentions.
Three parties were intimately linked here: Firstly, that Joseph and Mary did “everything required by the Law” provides a significant clue. I’d like to believe Jesus’ parents exemplified a lifetime of daily obedience beyond superficial rites that began with the dedication of their firstborn. To borrow Eugene Peterson’s phrase, the first task of parenting involves “a long obedience in the same direction.”
Secondly, it is the Lord who through his grace and mercy ultimately gives growth. After all, it is the Spirit’s business we are told, to work transformation “with ever increasing glory” in His people (2 Corinthians 3:18). Finally and not surprisingly, the child whose heart is thus prepared grows strong, “filled with wisdom and grace.”
So, am I saying that homeschool is the magic bullet? Of course not. A dynamic tripartite relationship between God-Parent-Child is what counts most of all. But if you are seeking a better way to realize these important goals than that which conventional educational systems offer, you might want to give homeschool some thought.
21 February 2002
Finding balance in a hurried world
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development.
In the course of the new year, we have had the opportunity to meet with new homeschooling families, either in their homes or in ours. Like most eager homeschoolers taking the first steps into an undiscovered country, conviction is usually greater than confidence. That could just as well describe our own state of mind when we took the plunge ourselves all those years ago.
It’s not unusual to feel these unequal tugs of anxiety and enthusiasm (even now, I may add). And depending on which side of the bed your child got up, homeschool is either the best decision you’ve ever made, or the most reckless! More so when your children are preschoolers and under 7.
Then there’s the simmering conflict: how much of study and play should one incorporate into a child’s routine? One of our boys used to say, “a child’s work is play,” which is exactly what Maria Montessori would say, but then, what did she know about the IT Revolution in the 3rd Millennium? If it’s up to the hundreds of kindergarten proprietors in the country, the earlier a child begins school, the greater the advantage. Hurry, hurry, no time to lose. And don’t just stop there – put them on a course of Computers, and Creative Thinking Skills (whatever that is!).
On the other hand, homeschooling’s elder statesman, octogenarian Dr Raymond Moore, thinks that such accelerated learning is a sure recipe for fatigue and stress in children, even serious harm. Start formal education later, he says, preferably around 10 to 12 years. “…the young child needs the early years for a normal blossoming period before he is ready for any serious approach to the skills of reading,writing and arithmetic. “ (Better Late Than Early)
His words follow those of famous Piagetian Dr David Elkind, Professor of Child Study at Tufts University. His book “The Hurried Child” (3rd edition) is a hard-hitting and well-documented indictment against institutionalised early childhood education (including industry and media forces) that only projects the parent’s need instead of a child’s inclinations. “Young children have limited powers of adaptation, which are sometimes exceeded by the pressures of adult scheduling,” he warns.
On the other side of the fence is Richard Fugate, the well-known writer and publisher of homeschool curricula. His book, “Will Early Education Ruin Your Child” is a scathing rebuttal of Moore’s ideas (and his theology). “There is no reason that many children, beginning phonics at four, five, or even six, shouldn’t complete high school requirements by 13 or 14 years of age without undue pressure or strain on parents or child. Homeschoolers should be at least one year above their public school counterparts…” He is however careful to clarify that he opposes any “super baby” type of teaching methods, and is merely challenging the position that early formal education is harmful to the child.
So much for the debate. What’s a simple Mom or Dad to do about controversies like this?
I would say, examine your motives first. Are you exerting adult pressure on Junior just to keep up with the Joneses? Are you egging him on to compensate for or validate your own person?
Second, know your child and decide what’s appropriate to his age and what matches his pace. Some basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic are important, but not every child need or will grow up an orator, a doctor, or a poet.
Finally, seek balance and put God’s desire for your child (and for the family) first. As much as we parents love our children, we can never outlove our Heavenly Father’s love for them. And as important as it is to start right, it is finishing well that matters most of all.