“If you really look at what the early brain-development stuff is saying, 4 is almost too late.” This is a quote from Katharine Stevens, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. It was taken from an article in The Atlantic has been praised and scoffed at by parents around the US.
The article, “When It Comes to Early Learning, Preschool Isn’t Enough,” is basically telling parents if their child isn’t in preschool, they won’t be as successful in life.
“How do we give our kids the best start possible when most of their early exposure to the world comes from us? It’s a lot of pressure on parents, whether they dream of a future Rhodes Scholar or struggle just to keep their children fed and clothed.”
Of course all parents want their kids to have a good start, but the pressure to have them potty trained by two-years-old, reading by five, and making A’s in Algebra by 5th grade is too much. When do kids just get to be kids? When do they get to play at the playground with no cares and fall asleep not worrying about their math grade?
This article really makes it sound like “poor, single moms” need the government’s help raising their kids. “The country still needs more investment-a whole lot more-to really change the life trajectory of young kids being raised by poor, single moms.”
There are plenty of “poor, single moms” who have raised intelligent, kind, successful children. There are plenty of “rich, married moms” who raise stupid, selfish, lazy children. The government doesn’t need to push parents to send their children to preschool or spend more money on programs.
Maybe there isn’t as big a problem as we think. It’s OK if kids don’t go to school until kindergarten. Let them be kids for a little while. Instead of strict learning environments, maybe we should focus on play oriented pre-schools. Why don’t we try to support young parents of all incomes and encourage them to read to their babies, play with their children, and enjoy them while they are little?
Education does start at home, but parents shouldn’t feel bad if their kids aren’t writing their names in cursive by the time they start kindergarten. The author of this article writes about her 20-year-old neighbor who had a four-year-old and was worried about reading to her. Instead of saying it was too late, maybe the author should share some books and support the young mother. Instead of writing off the child and her mom, maybe a little friendly support would help, rather than a judgemental “educated” mother telling her what to do.
