Happy New Year - A Quick Update
4 months ago
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Suggested Reading
Here's a link to a great article I wanted to share: The Overparenting Crisis. The author makes a lot of great points.
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Thank you for the article, Melanie, and for opening me to a whole new site & blogger! I have a feeling this is gonna be a long comment! :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with this author in many ways. I struggle in my work with the thought that we have to have curriculums set forth for our infants & toddlers in order to be deemed as "quality child care." I am all for the responsive caregiver idea in the first years of life!!! Very important!
But I see us hovering over our 2/3/4 year olds and pushing them so hard that I just don't like it! The more I do this work, the more I remove myself from set "curriculum" because I truly feel children of this age (2,3,4,5) need to learn to socialize and use their imaginations! There is nothing wrong with pretend play and being silly. I think the more children are encouraged to do things like this the bigger and stronger they are building their brains! Me telling our 2,3,4 yrs that today we are going to learn Humpty Dumpty and do egg/oval/rhyming whatever activities just isn't neccessary. But what's cool is that the little child may come to me with a book to read, we read it and I respond with rhyming, shapes, colors, etc. But it isn't a preset idea that today we are learning this!
I think it hinders our kiddos as they grow. If they aren't given the opportunity to use their imagination and create new ideas when they are small, how can we expect them to be the leaders, entrepeneurs and trend setters in their adult society.
Sorry, so long, it's just something that I have felt forming in my mind for some years, being uncomfortable with preK curriculums in a home setting and such.
I agree, Dinah! When I go grocery shopping and 2YO S and I count peaches as we put them in the bag, he's learning. When we look for red apples instead of green ones, he's learning. I didn't have a plan to teach him numbers and colors that day, but those concepts are reinforced frequently in a non-structured environment.
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