How Not to Get Kids Ready for the First Day of School
AUGUST 17, 2012
Last school year, I saw a young mother and father in the Decatur Public 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.
“Everyone knows” that the problem with “kids these days” is “parents these days.” If a child isn’t performing in school, his parents didn’t give him a good enough head start. 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.” (BTW, this notion is not only