Parents as Teachers in the Academic Achievement Race
Four Ways to Undermine Love of School
Yesterday, I saw a young mother and father in the Decatur Library leaning forward over a small table at their three-year-old daughter as she tried to put together the puzzle of an alligator with 26 green pieces A to Z. The A-piece belonged at the nose and Z at the tip of the tail. Their intensity was disturbing. They talked at her constantly as if their willpower could get their daughter to put the alphabet in order.
In the current zeitgeist, the pressure many parents feel to teach their children seems to be causing some to be both bad teachers and bad parents. Anxious that their children may fall short academically one parent actually defended her daily academic work with her four-year-old with these words: “These days if your child isn’t reading by kindergarten, he won’t succeed in school.”
