venting venting venting

[Kimba15]

I just have to vent, so you don't need to reply.

I was reading in my so called local newspaper today about teaching babies to read and how these so called early childhood experts were calling it absurd. It creams my cheese that these so called experts don't back up there statements by producing any real science to say it is harming our children. It is just absurd I believe to them because they didn't think of it first. I also love the quote "Teaching children or babies to read takes away from their childhood' How does it take away from their childhood I ask you???? What difference does the child know?? I almost feel as if these experts think that what I am doing as a parent is some how child abuse by making them smarter.

Oh heaven forbid your child be exceptional at something! Heaven forbid your child out does average joe!!!! Lets just continue living in Mediocrity because that has gotten us soooooo far as race. Lets not raise the bar, lets stay where we are because really if all these parents out there raise the bar I'm going to have to get off my backside and do something with my children. (If these so called experts have children)

What I love also is that a person in senior position to me says to me that what I am doing will socially isolate my child and that I should not send her to a state school because they only cater for learning disabled  kids or average jo and smart kids just get forgotten about and i can't expect a teacher to be able to excel my child. First of all I don't and if I did I wouldn't be doing Doman or Titzer program with her any way. Second of all I would never rely on a state system to help me educate my child. They did enough damage to my brother.

What gets me is that I am sick of being told that by teaching my child I am somehow abusing her and that I want her to not have a childhood. You know what I say to so called experts. BACK UP WHAT YOU SAY WITH SCIENCE!!!!! with a few other profanities that I would love to say but can't because I choose to be a nice lady

[Nikita]

It's strange isnt it, considering a childhood is a childhood whether it is bad or good...there are still the same numbers of hours, days, years in it for everyone..you cant add or subtract from their childhood!
You can give them a happy, quality one, or an unhappy, lacking one. I think all I am doing is adding to the quality of their lives, and as I feel ripped off that I didnt get these opportunities in my childhood (woe is me), I believe I am adding to my kids quality of life doing my learning enrichmaent activities. Infact, my 3 older kids feel ripped off they didnt get this much enrichment when they were younger!!! (I didnt know as much then, and the resources werent out there much then).

[waterdreamer]

Amen! I get mad when I read that kind of stuff too!!!! You know what teaching my child to read has given him confidence that he lack because he has trouble speaking. Also as his read vocabulary expands so does his spoken vocabulary.

[akalori]

I think that those people don't understand how little time the child spends on our lessons.  We spend alot of time preparing the lessons.  But the child consumes the lesson in 5 to 15 minutes, and goes back to playing, or begs to do it again .  I'm sure people think we spend hours everyday drilling our kids.  With all of the YBCR commercials on TV, I really thought everyone was going to be teaching their children earlier, but I guess not.

Lori

[diva7]

I hear you Kimba15, I generally get negative comments when I discuss early learning with others. I have stopped talking about it. But recently I had to discuss my daughters language ability to a montessori directress since she is to start stage 1 next year. I told her she can basically read any book she picks up, dont know the level but probably for a 4-6 yr old. I told her I did a flash card program with her ect
What I got as a reply was with what you are doing, the candle will burn out...it will. 

It just really bothered me...the only thing I did was to teach my daughter to read, dont do math or EK. Her general knowledge is from reading non fiction books. But this person who is suppose to have an understanding of early learning saying something like that made me really worry if what I am doing-putting her in montessori education is the right thing to do. Not only that she is suggesting that I am force teaching her hence her reading ability before 3.

It bothered me for days, I cannot put her through the public system as I dont want her to not show her full potential so she can be like everyone else in the class. I am not a teacher or very organise to homeschool.

[laughingwater]

I have to add my vent to this string.  I attend a neighborhood Mom's Group once a week.  When I first started attending I was new in the neighborhood and was asking them about the local preschool and elementary schools. My daughter's birthday is 17 days after the cutoff date to start first grade when she is 5, so basically she will have to start first grade when she is 6 and one month into it will turn 7 and will be 7 for her entire first grade year. So I expressed my concern that she would already be really bored if she were 5 since she will already be able to read and write and do math and holding her back an additional year is just absurd.  So the response from all the mom's in the group was "if you don't want her to be bored then don't teach her to read before she starts school".  How insane an answer is that!  Obviously not an option for me.

About the experts claim that learning to read decreases your childhood - my mother taught me to read and I was reading 1st and 2nd grade books when I was 2 years old. I started school when I was 5 (did spend most of my first 2 years in the library because the teacher didn't know what to do with me because I already knew everything and I wasn't socially ready for being advanced a grade).  I was a very social child, had lots of friends, experienced everything children should experience, excelled in school and sports, graduated at 16, by 20 had a degree and had travelled the world and started a career.  I am very thankful that my mother taught me to read (and many other things) and would certainly never trade it.  I plan to give my children the same advantage.

[waterdreamer]

Thats amazing laughingwater! I wish my parents had taken the time to teach me to read. I always struggled with reading and spelling. I remember struggling to learn sight words in the 1st grade, words my son can easily read at 4 years old. I can't believe people would suggest you stop teaching your child to read, just so she's not board, thats insane! Can your child challenge the cut off date. I mean if its only a month, maybe she can take a test to prove that she is ready. Or are they really sticky?

[Nikita]

Gee, there are anti-discrimination laws for just about everything...colours, races, sexuality, mental illness, mental challengedness...surely not allowing a child into school early could be seen as discrimination against intellectually advanced people...

[momtoo]

My 3.5year old already knows how to read (I do not know his level), add, subtract and multiply single digits just by us (mother-in-law, myself and my husband) teaching him when he asks us to (I make materials available most in our living room and when he gets interested in it, he shows us the material and we talk, read or watch the video/presentation with him).

Where we live, children who are ahead gets bored in school because the school district's funds are tied up to programs for children who are lagging behind - they only offer preschool to children who do not yet have skill sets needed to enter kindergarten and only one (to which we do not belong) of the schools in the district offer an advanced reading program. My mother-in-law is even concerned for my son that he might get bullied or lose interest in school (assuming he goes to a public school) because of his abilities.

I am leaning on doing homeschooling but both my husband and his mom are not keen on it. They have a fear that if he gets too smart, he will be like a distant relative who is a "genius"/has a brilliant mind but is a "failure" - can't keep a job for long, is socially inept. They tell me not to worry about him because he already has good genes (from both sides of the family) but I still cannot help but get more materials ready for him. This is because although he is a lot like his dad in some ways (his grandma says so), he is more like me and I remembered that when I was growing up, I had a lot of questions but there was nobody there to answer them or help me look for the answers. Then when I learned to read, I enjoyed reading more than playing with other children that I read all the books in our tiny home library (even the ones that weren't appropriate reading material for a child) twice or thrice and stayed in the school library until it closes for the day just to satisfy my voracious appetite for knowledge. Wouldn't it be so much easier if your immediate family is supportive of your efforts to give your child all the opportunities to become a self-actualized individual?

[laughingwater]

My daughter is only 1, so I'm not sure what I will do about school for her when she gets there - but yes I assume that I will challenge the age if we decide to send her to public school. From what I gather from neighborhood moms our school district is very unwilling to let a child into first grade early, and will only test them at the end of first grade, and perhaps let them skip a year at that time (once they have already made friends in their class and the year ahead of them has already bonded...)  I would really prefer not to home school, but I am open to it as an option if I can't get her in early (well, I think it is really on time versus late) and/or I think that her amount of bordom may cause her to lose interest.  I agree with momtoo that the school district's resources are dedicated to the children who are lagging and not the ones who are excelling.  My other option is to put her in a Montesorri or other private school - I have not yet done enough research on those options to know if they are viable.  But yes, the general attitute of moms seems to be anti-early education which just astounds me, and which I why I am so happy to have found this forum.

[momtoo]

Laughingwater, I have started doing research on Montessori and I think it might be an option as they group students ages 3-6 then 6-9 then 9-12 and if your daughter is able to demonstrate that she has mastered the skills, then she can move on to the next.

[laughingwater]

Momtoo - Thanks for the note about Montessori. There is a Spanish Montessori in our area that I am thinking about sending my daughter to when she is 3. I was thinking of it more as a preschool option, and as a way to expose her to another language when she is still young.  I have heard that quite a number of Montessori teachers discourage early reading. I have not yet interviewed the ones in my area, but should put that on my list. 

[joyb]

This is such an interesting thread!  I thought the exact same thing...with all of the promotion of the YBCR program that many more people would jump at the opportunity.

I have talked with my local Montessori school and when both of my kids are old enough, they will be attending there, with me as a teacher.  One big complaint that I collectively hear from the Montessori parents is that their kids are late readers.  But, I figure if my kids already know how to read, then it is better for them...this way they are not wasting time in the traditional classroom reviewing while the other kids learn to read.  It makes Montessori a great option for us "type" of parents.

[laughingwater]

Joyb - I guess that is a good way to look at it. If she already knows how to read then she doesn't need to be in a program that teaches early reading. makes sense I guess. Are you a teacher already? How do you become a Montesorri teacher?

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