This is one of my most favorite, but also most frustrating, times of year. Spring is just around the corner, our new catalog has just released, and people are beginning to emerge from their winter "slumber" to consider their curriculum choices for the coming school year. I love being part of our teams that talk with families about their school plans.
Today I'm helping out our Advisor team as they man our Live Chat feature. It's exciting to talk with moms and dads who are just considering the possibility of homeschooling, or who are returning to plan for their next year with Sonlight. But every year, without fail, we ask ourselves the question ... "why do people want their babies to be adults?" We chat with so many folks who are looking for formal curriculum programs for their 16 month, 18 month, or two year old children, and wonder why they want to grow their children up so quickly?
Please don't misunderstand ... our team is large and varied enough that we have some who have homeschooled advanced/gifted children. One of my own children began reading quite complex chapter books at a very young age. So it's not a denial that there are students who are accelerated in their ability to learn, but rather a desire to help moms/dads avoid stress in their own lives, and frustration in their child's life.
Dr. Raymond Moore, in research for one of his books, states In addition to our basic research at Stanford and the University of Colorado Medical School, we analyzed over 8000 studies of children's senses, brain, cognition, socialization, etc., and are certain that no replicable evidence exists for rushing children into formal study at home or school before 8 or 10.
Now that doesn't mean that you leave a young, bright, inquisitive child to be bored. Fill his/her hours with reading great books, lots of physical activity, helping mom and/or dad around the house, opportunities to serve others, etc... Instead of the latest electronic toys, give them playthings that will help them learn to work and be creative ... pots, pans, wooden spoons, paper, chalk, crayons, good books. I remember my children being most content sitting on my kitchen rug playing with muffin tins and large beads and blocks. Their imaginations just flourished!
I remember how excited I was to begin school with our oldest child. I also remember good friends who were a bit further down the parenting/homeschooling path than I was, encouraging me to not rush the process, and to let my daughter be a child, for adulthood was going to come all too soon.
Do a Google search on "kids grow up too fast" and you'll be amazed at the volume of studies and reports that are concerned with this generation's propensity to rush adulthood on their children. Perhaps we can help reverse that trend! Check out Sonlight's Preschool options and read, read, read to your children.
As Louise May Alcott wrote in Little Women ... Don't try to make me grow up before my time.
Still on the journey ...
~Judy Wnuk
Sonlight Customer Champion
[...] I'm sitting in Florida this morning, enjoying the quietness before the busyness of getting another convention off the ground. I'm contemplating all the great families we're going to meet ... parents who are excited, nervous, and eager to begin the journey of homeschooling. But I'm also thinking of the parents that we'll try to encourage to slow down and not stress about growing their children up too fast. [...]
I agree that this trend is frustrating. Pushing instead of leading. Pulling instead of walking along.
My children are friends with a young man who read books at two and now, at 11, is in college calculus. He is the Kansas state chess champion and will likely reach grandmaster by the time he is 18. So those children do exist, and they're really very normal people, actually.
But they are also very, very rare. I think often the extreme acceleration some parents want for their children would be for affirmation that the children are smart, and therefore the parents are wonderful and smart...
I have both accelerated and disabled special needs children. So if I overly tied my self-esteem to what people around me said, I'd be a very confused person indeed. :)
PS You might as well market some prenatal curriculum, and rake in the cash and build up the brand loyalty. *shrug* Doesn't hurt anyone, right?
I've found that my desire for my kids to learn more earlier has waned with each child. When I oldest was not even two, I was eager to buy curriculum. Not really because I wanted him to grow up, but because I was just excited for what was to come. But I do think that I pushed him too early, and now, we struggle with 'school'. Our youngest is 5 weeks old, and I plan to slow her down as much as humanly possible. :)