That is a tricky situation - one the school should probably give a little more thought. Having said that it could also be a way for your children to come to acceptance and the school should be able to offer help.

I think that talking about it in a natural way amongst yourselves will help you discover what they are and aren't comfortable with. If you can deal with the feelings that are most distressing to them or hurting them it will help them to heal and understand and will also help them to know how to vocalise what they are comfortable with when a non-family member asks.

If it can't be discussed openly at home it will be all the more difficult for them to discuss in a social situation.

Remember children need to be taught how to understand and label their feelings. A child in this situation is experiencing feelings that most children wont identify with for many years and will need help sorting through the array of confusing emotional messages their brain is experiencing. I think if you can help them to sort through these feelings, label each of them , express them and discover why they are there you will be on the road to helping them accept the situation life has thrown at them.

Once they have been through this process "divorce" wont sound half as ugly, it will be another word to describe another situation instead of a word filled with confusing emotions and negative connotations.

My first marriage fell apart and I had a lot of trouble with the word divorce, until I really went through and analysed what I was feeling and sorted through it and accepted it, then it ceased to be an issue when I had to tick the divorced box instead of the married box on govt forms.

A key factor in helping your children deal with this situation is that you need to have dealt with it yourself. They will be guided by you in this. I wish you strength and courage, self-analyzing can be a confronting expedition but is well worth it. If you help your children while they're still young they will come out strong and self aware.

Also remember there are lots of support groups for yourself and for your children, you need not handle this alone.

[learn how to fall before they learn how to climb.]

Hey McDume,

A fair enough opinion, not one I can agree with however.

If parents step  in to assist (beyond spotting them for safety), then they get a false sense of security.

It is how you handle the stepping in that creates a false sense of security - not the stepping in itself.

Whenever our son got himself into a situation where he needed to be rescued we would, in slow motion, simulate ways he could get himself out of trouble while still falling, teaching him several things simultaneously 1) to bring his chin to his chest whenever he was falling 2) how to control a fall and roll out of the motion 3) to think about what he was doing.

 I completely agree with you that children should learn through their natural day to day experiences, however, so many children these days simply aren't allowed to climb this or stand on that because it's dangerous or because their parents have fear themselves. One key factor (for all child safety issues) we were never far away enough from our son that he could get himself into a situation that was dangerous and beyond our control. If a young child has managed to climb up onto a swing at age when they can't handle it, the question begs to ask what were they doing out there by themselves in the first place?

My philosophy is to never put my babies in situations they can't get into, and especially out of, themselves.

This is where we differ - our philosophy is to teach him how to handle situations so that we can gradually step out and he knows and we know that he can handle the situation by himself.

It is important that children learn how to fall before they learn how to climb.

 There are several advantages to doing this when they are young. Firstly they don't become stiff as they fall (something you want them to hold onto as stiffness when falling often results in far more serious injury). Secondly anything they climb is still quite close to the ground meaning you're not trying to reach over your head to control a fall (much much more difficult) and any fall will be minimal giving them the chance to practice without risk of more than a bruise and a bit of upset.

One example was teaching him how to slide off our double bed safely, always feet first, always with your chin tucked to your chest (that way if they slide too quickly and fall backwards the head does not whack into the ground) always using friction to control the speed of the slide. He had this "game" mastered by the time he 6 months landing lightly on his feet and giggling in delight. We also played drama games about what would happen if he rolled off the bed and would in slow motion simulate the fall, indicating a hard landing and pain through sound effects (all while he was safely cradled in our arms). He loved both games but not once did he roll off our bed. (We were very poor and living in a one room house at the time so he often had to be put on the bed - we had no choice but to teach him).

Over the past seventeen years I have noticed that less and less children know how to handle falling, something I have begun having to teach them in their acrobatics classes. I put this down parents over protecting their children, preventing them from learning the key skills of handling their own body at the right and natural times. Instead parents should be promoting awareness, physical competence and forethought. The ability to logically look at the dangers is very different to promoting a fear of heights or of climbing by constantly stopping them and telling them it's dangerous. If you leave a child to learn to climb when they are old enough to handle it or when they are safe - they will never learn as well as a child who develops this skill naturally and slowly and in line with everything else they are learning in the motorskill department.

Children will climb, children will fall. How they have been exposed to this in their younger years will determine how they handle it when they are older. It is our job as parents to help develop an understanding of the world, we believe we did this. Our son has great forethought, he is not scared of heights but neither is he reckless. He also happens to be a great climber.

As for teaching him to climb, the poor child had no choice (my pregnancy was awful, I lost my company we went from riches to rags in nine months) we lived in a box with everything we owned in one room he learned to climb before he could do anything else because to get from one spot to another you had to climb over things (sometimes under in his case). It would have been negligent of us not to teach him but I am very, very glad we.

I think sometimes in wanting to keep our children safe we go too far. Keeping your child safe means being with them to help them learn how to handle situations and handling them for them when needed. It doesn't mean plonking them down out in the back yard and forbidding them from climbing the slippery dip because they might fall. If your child is old enough to be any where without you by their side then they should have learned the skills the handle the area they are in.

Didn't mean to rave on so much, sorry. I think so many people forget that in nature our first job would be to teach physical survival skills (more so than talking and reading and maths) and our children are particularly tuned in to learning about these aspects of their environment and we can foster a good understanding of what really is dangerous and what can be handled with skill and whether or not they have this skill at quite a young age.

I am putting together a site with videos of my son doing such things when it is up I will post you the address so you can see the sorts of games we played and the resultant climbing skills
 

Thanks 2010Bebes,

I'll be sharing these with the bub for sure.

I never formally learned but my hubby and I did the pro musician thing for a while (that's where we met actually) and I've fiddled a bit, I bought my son a miniature one for his birthday. He's only two so it's a bit complicated but he pushes the keys while we work the bellows.

I love the accordian and while I love the technology of synthesizers they are still nowhere near the real thing.

I think you could be right, I felt much the same about breast feeding. I was often asked how often my son fed and my response was whenever he was hungry. We were able to do this because our lifestyle didn't demand us to be on a strict routine so I was able to suit him.

I think sometimes we try to make the babies fit our schedules too much for our own convenience....

Well put Krista G

Thanks KristaG,

I just read the parts of the book that were available to me without signing in, so I didn't get to read the real crux of his argument (if he was ever actually going to state one) however I think I read enough to get a general idea.

The key word I guess is "pressure" and that is where a lot of people misunderstand what we do for miseducation.

I have never pressured my child to repeat a word, I have never asked him to read for people like a performing seal and I do not teach him because it makes me feel good about myself. I am an acrobatics coach and I teach my child acrobatics because he was teaching himself and I personally would prefer it if he tucked his head under in a forward roll, does making sure that my son does what he would have done any way in a safe manner make me a pushy mother who wants a superkid?

I was taught to read and count by my sister and believe that my well above average IQ was a direct result of learning to read and do basic math at a young age. I never struggled with a single concept at school, my first algebra lesson was anti-climactic because when the teacher wrote y+2=9 I instantly saw that y=7 and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about, in fact I went home and accused my father of lying to me stating "you said algebra would be fun and challenging" he said "I guess you'll have to wait for calculus" which ended up in pretty much the same fashion.

The only regret I have about learning before school is that my schools could not satisfy my needs to learn and were unable to provide suitable challenges for me. But then I was at a Catholic school run by nuns and when I finished my work (in about 30 seconds) I was expected to sit still and wait for the rest of the class to catch up (ten minutes later). We all know this wouldn't happen these days. Never the less I will be homeschooling to ensure that the love of learning is never quashed in my son.

I have seen children who didn't learn to read or know any alphabet when they get to school and many of them don't enjoy learning to read and why would they? A five year old child (that's kindergarten age here and when our children are traditionally taught to read) can create complex sentences and create great stories why would they be interested in learning "the cat sat on the mat" (or in fact "a - apple") when they are capable of telling you all about dinosaurs and when they went extinct etc. Why should a child's reading language be so far behind their vocalised language? Learning the two together means the two are always at the same level, meaning books of interest are always available.

Would a tiger mother teaching her child to pounce at an early age be accused of being pushy or simply be categorized as a mother teaching her child survival skills? The bushmen teach their children to "read the news", they learn all about their environment how to read animal tracks, how to find water, what plants you can eat - are they miseducating by teaching their children to "read" so young.

It is the job of the parent to unravel the world for the child  -to break it down into bite size chunks that the child can deal with and to ensure that by the time they are on their own they are able to survive without us. I believe that in today's world that means reading, writing, maths, languages and physical education etc.

As for his argument against teaching swimming - well tell that to all those parents who have lost their toddlers to drowning. Gymnastics - if my child was balancing on a wall instead of a beam would that make it alright? If he was swinging off tree branches instead of parallel barres is that alright? Kids love hanging upside down and bouncing on trampolines and balancing so by formalising the environment in which they do these things it becomes pressure? We no longer live in a world where our kids can go hang outside and get physically superb just by being kids and the advantages of co-ordination, strength, balance and body awareness extend into all facets of life.

Those of us who understand Doman's vision of children reaching their potential, understand that we don't test our children - so how can what we do in such a gentle and loving manner be considered pressure? If my son loses his ability to do maths and read I wont care because I know he has had wonderful times learning with me and has learned the most most valuable education lesson of all - how to learn.

Any way I've had my rave and I think we all know that there is a huge difference between teaching your child and pressuring your child and those of us who know the difference know that David Elkind's book is irrelevant to us.

Hey Susanchorn,

There is a lot of information (or tricks as you call it) out there that work for most babies but I guess we have to remember that everything in life fits into the bell curve and that those of us with children in the outlier regions just aren't going to get the same results.

When Sabian was younger I was told that babies always wake up at the same time and to put him in bed at 7:30 and he'll still wake up at 7:30, just give it a week. Well we did that on the advice of this "sleep expert" and after wearing him out all day and skipping his nap we managed to get him down by 7:30 and he was up at 3:30, a week later we were zombies and Sabian's routine was still the same number of hours just at a worse time of the day.

Over the last few days I've taken the advice of these wonderful parents and mixed it all up a bit. Rather than expecting him to sleep at a reasonable hour like other children I expect him to sleep when he's tired.

Going to sleep when he does means I am at least getting sleep which makes dealing with a messy house and energetic child much much easier.

I feel guilty now for trying to fit my child into a square whole when he's so obviously a round peg. We've never done that with anything else but the lack of sleep was clouding my judgement.

I look forward to the day when he's older and is like Marmee's nine year old

Hi susankhan,

I hope you didn't think I was rubbishing your article - in fact I thought it was great.

A good teacher is worth their weight in gold, they are unfortunately few and far between. In my entire schooling life I had three brilliant teachers a lot of very average teachers and a handful of really bad teachers.

I was not at all surprised by the findings stated in your article we all know that the first 5 years of a child's life are very influential and obviously their first educational experience will have a big impact - hence why so many of us are educating our babies.

The facts outlined in your article are the main reason my husband and I intend to home school. If we could be guaranteed good quality teachers, in well resourced rooms, with a good teacher to student ratio, every year of son's education we'd consider school but we know that it is unlikely we'd get that for even half the time.

I may need to have a read of this David Elkind's book so that I can properly refute his arguments. I've never met a child who was exposed to gentle and loving early education that came to harm from it. If he were talking about pushy and forced education only I could go with that easily but from DadDude's description that's not it at all.

It's a touchy subject for me because Australian's have a tendency to have what we call "tall poppy syndrome" - instead of seeing  a young child loving education they see that their child is missing out and instead of rectifying that they rubbish it. "let them be kids" as if learning to read will make them an adult or steal their childhood away and a whole bunch of other myths.

Anyway, just wanted to make sure you hadn't misinterpreted my original rave

Yes, exposure is what I mean.

I like to feed information in and let the brain do the computing and I believe if the information is put in at the right time then the child can draw the conclusions for themselves, if it is left too late then perhaps phonics need to be "taught"

I'd be interested to know too - the cake's a great idea, always good to incorporate practical everyday experiences into learning

I could have used that when the bub was born - we lived in a one room granny flat for the first year - it was extremely cramped.

That man is a genius.

Hi sarakumley,

I know what you mean about the deluxe set, I was drooling over it, but just couldn't justify it with everything else we buy for him. I think the deluxe set has a lot of extra material you can use to extend on the lessons but it isn't necessarily stuff you need or can't make yourself. For instance if we want to do the words with Sabian away from the computer we use a megasketcher, he loves it and he gets to erase the words which he finds very exciting.

I would recommend getting what you can and spending the extra on other programs that run parallel to this one - things like the tweedlewink

Hey susanchorn,

I am ordering the tweedlwink program today, so when it arrives I will post about our experience.

I get really sick of some of the misinformation that floats around regarding early education.

My mother in law is very, very anti us teaching our son (and she's a school principal) because apparently children who are taught to read before school end up with no imagination. She got this from a colleague who's had "too many upstart parents thinking they can teach their kids".

Now I am living proof that this is not the case - I was an early reader and I have always had a great imagination.

I cannot understand why people are so frightened of babies learning. Is it because their own learning experiences were so unpleasant they can't imagine the joy and bonding of sharing these lessons with our children?

I have even been accused of being a pushy parent and I am quite far from it - My son will do and be whatever he chooses to do and be  - I teach him to read because it is good for him, he enjoys it and it is a very special time for us. Yet people would rather me sit and watch rubbish cartoons with him and fill his head with nonsense and confusing images that mean nothing in the real world so that he can "be a kid".

I'm at the point where I don't tell people what my son can do because it is easier than dealing with their condescension and ignorance.

There are some many more things that preschoolers really are at risk of that people don't talk about and here they are rubbishing quality education......

I really just can't understand it.

Interesting....

I think that it comes down to the brain's ability to decipher codes - not just grammar or phonics but even maths. It is an argument (well debate) I have had with people for many years.

People will say they are bad at maths but at a very deep level if they were bad at maths they would not be able to function. Catching a ball, crossing the road in traffic, overtaking another car. All these things require the subconscious brain to do quite high level mathematics extremely quickly. Much of this subconscious maths is learned in early development and hence we are unaware of the processes. So perhaps it is not that they are bad at maths at all but that their conscious brain is bad at maths. I have always believed this to be the methods in which maths was taught.


Richard Feynman (maths and physics extraordinaire and general all round genius) was horrified at the methods taught to teach children maths and felt these methods contributed to so many children struggling. He believed they should be able to work the rules out, use varying methods of approaching the same problem etc. Instead of the closed and rigid way maths has been taught in the last few generations.

I believe the brain to have the ability to memorize the words bug, bed, big and work out what sound 'b' makes because, well it's obvious and babies' brains are geared up to this kind of deciphering particularly in the first few years.

Having said that if you don't expose a child to enough examples of the same letters making the same sounds etc it will not be possible for them to make these connections as they don't have enough information to come to any sort of conclusion about anything.

When you come right down to it there haven't been enough studies on whether children can truly decipher these codes, because too many people are still funny about teaching children at all let alone experimenting with the methods of teaching children. There is no way my son would be part of an experiment that denied exposure to phonics - what if they were wrong???

I personally will explore every avenue of learning I can expose my child to as I don't think it will hurt him, but not teaching one could. I am a big believer of teaching through exposure and guiding students to conclusions rather than telling them as I believe a self-drawn conclusion to have more "stick". I have always found students who could tell me their own corrections could also make those corrections much more easily.

By the way I completely agree with you that Phonics should be taught, but I also think it should be taught in conjunction with the other methods and once again through guided exposure allowing the child to draw their own conclusions from what they have been presented.

Thanks ShenLi,

Great info - loved the quote about the colours.

I try to be open minded about these things - there is so much about the universe and life we don't know or understand it would silly to pass it off because of ignorance.

Tying it into quantum mechanics also makes perfect sense.

Thanks for this great stuff