Pushing kindergarteners (college, private school, grade, exam)

[Ivorytickler]

Here's an article on tutoring for kindergarteners. What are your thoughts? Are we pushing young children too hard?

Tutoring tots? Kids prep for kindergarten - Kids and parenting- msnbc.com

[reloop]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Here's an article on tutoring for kindergarteners. What are your thoughts? Are we pushing young children too hard?

Tutoring tots? Kids prep for kindergarten - Kids and parenting- msnbc.com

Yes. Frankly I find it appalling. I often wonder why we are so da*med surprised when "Little Johnny" becomes an angry, frustrated, and troubled kid who disrupts classes. The next thing you know, he's on powerful psychiatric medications (most of which have negligent research done on the effects to a developing body) because he can't sit still for all but the scant 15 minutes he gets to go outside and be a kid per day.

Personally, I consider it child abuse. Let them play for crying out loud - they're children, not mini-adults. With maturity comes learning as well.
Yeeshhh...there's plenty of time for stress-induced stomach ulcers when they're grown for Pete's sake.

[golfgal]

You do know that you are a MUCH better parent then everyone else if your child can do calculus by the end of kindergarten don't you . If your child can't do the basic required information by the end of kindergarten, by all means try a tutor but for most children it is totally unnecessary. One thing people forget is that you can push and push and push but until their brain is ready to process the information it isn't going to help them at all.

[Sudcaro]

Children should be children, not machines. Kindergarten is made for them to socialize and learn "basic" things, period.

[Sandhillian]

I saw a commercial yesterday about a product that will teach a baby to read. Honestly, it was so disgusting. I think it might cause mental detriment (as well as emotional) when your child doesn't learn the age appropriate things because they are so busy making Mom and Dad look smart. Let's face it, when parents want their kids to be geniuses it is because they think that will reflect on them. It's not about helping the kids excel; it's about the parents looking good.

[LisaCACO]

I agree. i'm keeping my kid in preK another year just so she can have a year of play-learning before the trauma of kindergarten. Kindergarten is now what the last semester of 1st grade used to be, without the fun. it's awful. my daughter already has anxiety. she doesn't need to be tested to death from kindergarten on. I think a lot of the folks who keep their kids back a year aren't doing it so their kids will be brighter, it's so their kids won't be crazy at the end of it all. my daughter needs another year of maturity to deal with all this craziness.

I visited all the nearby schools and play has disappeared. all they do is sit and work. they're transitioning to all day K, which is just crazy. most kids that age aren't ready for all day. I think it's the parents who want it. they want kids who can do all this stuff at birth.

my daughter can read, but she reads because I read to her, not because I push her to learn to read. It's also because it's at HER pace. another kid may not learn to read for another year or two and that's fine too. it's not a race. the goal is that they all end up at the same place-learning to read.

[drjones96]

Originally Posted by golfgal

You do know that you are a MUCH better parent then everyone else if your child can do calculus by the end of kindergarten don't you . If your child can't do the basic required information by the end of kindergarten, by all means try a tutor but for most children it is totally unnecessary. One thing people forget is that you can push and push and push but until their brain is ready to process the information it isn't going to help them at all.

Yep

My middle child is starting K this year. All this past year we've been working on ABC's with her. And the week before school started I asked her to write her ABC's and she just has a mental block and can't do it. Then I asked her to just write various letters....and she can't do anything beyond the letter 'F'. I started to push the issue but decided to just let it go.

Because I remembered what happened with her older sister...We worked and worked and worked with her in pre-school to get her to write her name to no avail. One day her preschool teacher told her to write her name and she just did it on her own. And from then on it was like she had this wave of intelligence. Always one of the best students in her class.

[uptown_urbanist]

Yes, I definitely agree that there is far too much pushing to have children do more at a younger age. And while the discussion in the article relating to the impact of NCLB is interesting, I don't think that's the root cause of this. I think it's far worse in the private school crowd; in some cities and at certain "best" preschools (best if you want to get into the "right" private school, therefore supposedly boosting your chance of getting into the "right college") preschool entrance interviews for both students and parents is the norm. The pressure in San Francisco among some parents was crazy. In Minneapolis it feels a lot more relaxed, although I still know plenty of Minnesotan parents who fully buy into the idea that these beeping so-called "educational" toys are going to mean the difference between an average and a genius child. While starting to do research into preschools for my son I've been disappointed to find that some of the preschools that offer some aspects of what I want -- bilingual or immersion programs, for example -- also tend to the be places that promote homework and worksheets for four-year-olds! There is plenty of time for that later. This sort of pressure seems to be designed to take the fun out of learning.

[littlefamily]

Yes! Oddly enough there is SO much research out there that demonstrates that we (USA) continue to decline in academic progress, by following the route of pushing academics down....

My pet peeve is the "push" for more and more writing at younger ages. When you think about the skills involved - holding the pencil, making it move the way you need it to, etc... then you need to have a complete thought, hold that thought in your head long enough to put it to paper (using those fine motor skills that are still not developed very well...) and it only leads to poor writing skills. But somehow we have come to the conclusion that if we do more of it, it will get better.

I was reading some information from a college english professor, who really feels we do a disservice to our children by pushing all the writing at an early age. She has seen first-hand how children taught to write in this manner with no "skills/fundamentals" taught to them at an early age only turn out to be poor writers later in life. The problem is that the majority of children are taught this way....

What happened to copywork? And for that matter grammar? And even reading great works of literature to our children as a model of excellent writing?