`Knee Bends, knee bends, and back, and forth . . . . Let me see you work that body, girl!"
Is it Mum at the aerobics class? No, that's tiny two-month-old Tina attending her workout at a gym called Great Shapes, somewhere in America.
This would be pretty funny if it weren't actually true - parents in America do send their children to baby gyms. And it could be only a matter of time before it happens here.
In Ireland, we are far from immune to the pressure American parents feel. We may not be working out at six months just yet, but we certainly expect our three-year-olds to come home from the playgroup with evidence of learning. Their somewhat abstract portraits of themselves in the garden are all very endearing, but if Charlie down the road is forming a perfect R and getting his 3s the right way round, we can't help but feel at least a bit worried.
Childrearing manuals telling parents what age to expect them to be doing everything from smiling to walking are big business. And if they aren't up on their feet toddling across the kitchen on their first birthday, alarmed parents can be seen hiking baby under an armpit and tearing off down to the local educational toys shop for the ultimate "teach your child to walk" toy. However, at a conference on early childhood education organised by the Irish Pre-School Playgroups Association (IPPA) earlier this month, Dr David Elkind, an American lecturer in early childhood education and author of The Hurried Child and Miseducation, spoke about the uneasy trend towards formal education for younger and younger children. Despite the variety of parenting styles around these days, most parents (often unwittingly) succumb to an all pervasive pressure to raise "superkids", he said. "The proliferation of commercial, formal instructional exercise programmes for infants and young children is witness to our new eagerness to extend formal instruction to this age group," he said. "Cuddles, affection, love and care" - stuff that comes naturally to parents - go much further towards ensuring children grow up to be confident, happy, successful, and fit, he said.
Elkind described the tendency to send children into formal education settings earlier and earlier as a form of '`miseducation". "Children will perform all right, but young children need practical experience before they are introduced to symbols which represent that experience. Teaching early reading and early maths before children have mastered their language skills is inappropriate." Elkind's claims aren't uncontroversial. Other researchers contend that not only can children as young as two learn to read, but that it both gives them a head stard and stands by them in the long term. Typically, those in favour of teaching children early reading or maths - or even to become adept swimming champions while they are still breastfeeding - cite geniuses such as John Stuart Mill, Goethe or Mozart as examples of brilliant adults who received considerable instruction from a very early age.
In many preschool facilities in Ireland - including Early Start, the State programme - pre-reading, writing and maths skills are taught from age three. However, this is far from ideal, according to Elkind. (Indeed Early Start did not pass its evaluation last year with glowing colours.) "Formal education is inappropriate for young children. They need time to explore their environment and to understand it by relating to it in practical ways, through play. "They don't need a whole lot of stimulation. We all remember times when we've taken our children to some fantastic circus, for example, and they come home and all they can talk about is the can of Coke they got during the interval." As for the breed-a-genius argument, Elkind cited the likes of Einstein, Darwin and Freud as children who "did not have early instruction by parents". A study of 120 gifted people in the US showed "the parents of the people who have attained eminence were careful not to impose their priorities on their children but, instead, to follow each child's lead", he said.
Long-term studies show that formal instruction from an early age tends to create anxious children who grow up into stressed-out adolescents, he said. "Every generation of parents needs to learn about children - no one is born knowing. They need to learn how their minds work, and therefore what it is appropriate for them at each stage. "We teach our young children not to talk to strangers so they won't come to harm, but what do they understand when they are four years old? We give them the big talk, turn our back, and there they are, speaking to adults they have never met. " `He's not a stranger,' they say, `he has no bandage on his head.' `No bandage?' we ask. `You told me the stranger was sick in the head,' they reply." It is not inappropriate to protect our children, but it is inappropriate to assume they understand things the way adults do, Elkind said.
"There is no need to rush our children through a developmental timetable. The child who leaves the early years with a strong sense of security, a healthy feeling of self-esteem and an enthusiasm for living and learning is well prepared for a difficult world."
