When our children are born, we want them healthy and happy; this is really all we're concerned with when our children are infants. However, something happens to us dads when our children approach the ripe, old age of three. We become drill sergeants.
We begin hammering our three-year-old with letters and words and sentences and writing exercises and equations, all so we can prepare him or her for the sure-to-be-rigorous first day of pre-school or kindergarten.
Years ago, my tone in the above paragraph could have been considered ironic. However, more and more schools are pushing children to learn more in earlier grades than in years past. Now, children are expected, in most cases, to have good reading and writing skills upon entering kindergarten.
Recently, a father of a five-year-old boy reported to me that the school where his child will enter kindergarten requires that all children enrolling in kindergarten be able to read, write, and even perform simple math. His son is not ready to start kindergarten because of the standards, so the boy's father has begun tutoring his son in order to get the youngster prepared for kindergarten next year.
While the above example is not always the case, it is clear that schools demand more and more out of their kindergarteners as each year passes.
All of this preparation may help to get our children to the top of the class, or at least caught up with some of the other children who are already reading and writing and solving equations. However, all of that time we spent tutoring our children, or having someone else tutor our children, could have been spent in the backyard playing ball or engaging in some other play activities.
But, we are almost forced by the education system to spend more time teaching and tutoring our children and less time playing with them. Children need play in order to learn social rules and to gain confidence in their physical abilities. It is for this reason that more schools should allow for more playtime than they currently allow. According to MSNBC contributor, Jacqueline Stenson, who cites a study from the Alliance of Childhood, in New York and Los Angeles schools "most children had half an hour or less a day for playtime, and some got no playtime at all."
If schools would take the pressure off children to learn concepts which children may not be ready to learn, and provide more stimulus to get outside and play with peers, our children would be healthier, happier, and smarter. Edward Miller and Joan Almon tell us
Research shows that children who engage in complex forms of socio-dramatic play have greater language skills than nonplayers, better social skills, more empathy, more imagination, and more of the subtle capacity to know what others mean. They are less aggressive and show more self-control and higher levels of thinking.
Miller and Almon contend that when children "invent scenes and stories, solve problems, and negotiate their way through social roadblocks," they are better prepared physically, intellectually, and socially for success in school and in society.
Yes, we want our children to succeed, but at what cost? Anxiety. Depression. Lack of social development. In order to keep our children heathy emotionally and physically, we need to stress play over academics, at least in the pre-school and kindergarten years.
References
Miller, Edward and Joan Almon. (2009). Summary and recommendations of crisis in kindergarten: why children need to play in school. http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Kindergarten_
8-page_summary.pdf
Stenson, Jacqueline. (2009). "Tutoring tots? kids prep for kindergarten: students under growing pressure to perform at ever-younger ages." Updated 19 August 2009. Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32404017/ on 19 August 2009.
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