PARENT POWER
'Jump start' programs don't help
By John Rosemond
Q. All of the moms in my mother's morning-out group are purchasing academic "jump start" programs for their toddlers, some of whom are barely 2. What do you think of this trend, and if I don't do this for my child, will he begin school at a disadvantage?
A. There is no good evidence to the effect that the artificial "gains" produced by programs of this sort, whether computer-driven or human-driven, are of lasting value.
Researchers have consistently found that by grade 3, one cannot tell the difference between children who came to first grade knowing their ABC's, number facts, or even how to read and kids of comparable ability who came as academic "blank slates."
In other words, the notion that "jump-starting" a preschooler produces a smarter child or a child who consistently achieves at higher levels is bogus.
Programs of this sort appeal to parents who are desperate for what I call "trophy children" — children they can brag about and who will earn them "My child is an honor student..." bumper stickers.
History also confirms that the teaching of academic "tricks" to preschool children is irrelevant to later school achievement. Children who entered school in the 1950s — my generation — rarely came to first grade knowing what today's children are often expected to know before entering kindergarten.
As but one example, I came to first grade knowing the ABC song but could not have correctly identified more than three letters of the alphabet — A, B and C — and then only in upper case. Yet kids of my generation achieved at considerably higher levels at every grade than today's kids — often while sitting in what today would be considered horribly overcrowded classrooms, in the most ergonomically disastrous desks ever made.
We were able to do this because the majority of us came to school with the most essential prerequisite for academic success: good behavior.
We came to school already having learned to pay attention and do what we were told. Our teachers did not have to spend lots of time on discipline because we came to school already disciplined.
Needless to say, our attention-deficit and oppositional-defiant "disorders" (i.e., toddlerhood) had been cured long before we came to school. Any teacher will tell you that he/she would rather teach a well-behaved child with IQ 100 than an ill-behaved child with IQ 150.
Not only is it a waste of time to teach a preschooler academic skills (exception: the child asks, without prompt or push, to be taught and catches on without effort), it can be and often is dangerous to the child's intellectual health.
Psychologists Jane Healy ("The Endangered Mind," 1999, Simon & Schuster, $11.20) and David Elkind ("Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk," 2001, Perseus, $11.87) find that introducing academic instruction prematurely, especially through computers and other electronic media, can actually damage brain development and even set the stage for later learning disabilities.
Unfortunately, it has become nearly impossible for preschools to attract clientele unless they boast computers in every room. Ironically, we seem to know more about what is good and bad for children than ever before, yet we continue to justify doing what is bad.
Instead of teaching preschool children to jump through academic hoops, parents would do better to teach their children good manners.
Sadly, they give no bumper stickers for kids who say "please" and "thank you" and don't interrupt conversations.
In that latter regard, stay tuned for next week's column on — you guessed it — not interrupting adult conversations.
John Rosemond is a family psychologist. Reach him at Affirmative Parenting, 1020 East 86th St., Suite 26B, Indianapolis, IN 46240 or www.rosemond.com.
