Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Toddler Tutoring

From the "Let's Not Let Kids Be Kids" department:
Today's Wall Street Journal features an article on how tutoring centers such as Sylvan and Kumon are now offering tutoring services to children who still drink from sippy cups.
Silly me. I thought that kindergarten was the place for children to learn to write their name, say their ABCs, count to 10 and use scissors.
I certainly don't run for the opportunity to hand scissors to my three-year-old! I'd rather leave that to the experts, thanks. Preschoolers can do amazing things with scissors and, trust me, those things almost never involve paper.
It used to be that reading to your child, maybe coloring a bit, and (if you were a real overachieving parent) using Play-Dough with the child was all that was necessary to prepare your child for school. Oh, and let's not forget potty-training.
Now they're doing algebra in third grade. I am just thankful that I have a teenager in the house who could help Middle Sister with her math homework. It was certainly beyond me.
Maybe I'd better get over to the nearest Sylvan and take a quick calculus class before Little Brother goes to pre-kindergarten....

1 comment:

Rock Wren said...

I'm pretty sure that when my parents were being raised by my grandparents, and when I was being raised by my parents, there was less focus on the lives of children. Parents didn't much care about a child's opinion or what a child might be contemplating at any given time. The parents' focus was on their own life. That's pretty difficult today when you can't just let kids run wild in the neighborhood...