Question

s the trend to get children into school before kindergarten a good thing? Or are we pushing our children too much?

According to developmental psychologist David Elkind author of The Hurried Child, many Americans are hurrying their children to achieve academically and socially and forcing them into independence too soon (something he says they come to regret when those same children reach adolescence).

Children’s lives are way too organized, and too jam-packed, leaving them with not enough time to play, imagine, and follow their own interests. According to Elkind, Piaget believed that children learn primarily from their own spontaneous exploration of things and a subsequent reflective abstraction from those activities. Elkind agrees. And while praising the good that it does for impoverished children, Elkind blames Head Start for starting what he calls the “pernicious idea” that children have to be formally educated while they are toddlers.

Generate discussion on the following point

• Evidence of the pressure to grow up fast is the pressure to engage in organized competitive sports and to perfect skills. Schedules and supervision have often times replaced spontaneity and freedom. Lessons, not make believe, are the rule.

Answer 1

Children today live in an environment that is too demanding, too stressful and too organized where they miss their childhood play time end experiences. The world is changing and the parents are forced to keep their kids engaged. Projects such as teaching sign languages to boost early language development from birth tries to make human beings a machine. Children become too tired and too disciplined that they look for avenues to break things and become rebels when they reach their adolescent age. The demanding career qualifications and skills force the parents to start training their children from a very young age. Anything that’s too demanding will not be sustainable because people should be ready to perform certain tasks. Children need to be physically and cognitively ready to understand concepts and perform tasks, otherwise, they will feel inferior or develop low self-esteem if they are not able to perform the task as expected. So, in my opinion, children should grow naturally enjoying their childhood time playing outside, sharing with other kids and learning by doing things and they shouldn’t be forced to learn things just for the sake of the parental pressure.