What I’m Reading: “Bringing Up Bebe,” The American Question

March 26, 2012 By 2 Comments

Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman is a fascinating book. I offered a summary here, but after starting the book, I couldn’t put it down! It’s a great read.

Today, I’ll discuss the author’s take on American parents’ tendency to push their children through milestones. Here’s an excerpt:

“In the 1960s, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget came to America to share his theories on the stages of children’s development. After each talk, someone in the audience typically asked him what he began calling The American Question. It was: How can we speed these stages up?

Piaget’s answer was: Why would you want to do that? He didn’t think that pushing kids to acquire skills ahead of schedule was either possible or desirable. He believed that children reach these milestones at their own speeds, driven by their own motors.

The American Question sums up an essential difference between French and American parents. We Americans assign ourselves the job of pushing, stimulating, and carrying our kids from one developmental stage to the next. The better we are at parenting, we think, the faster our kids will develop….

French parents just don’t seem so anxious for their kids to get head starts. They don’t push them to read, swim, or do math ahead of schedule. They aren’t trying to prod them into becoming prodigies,” (Bringing Up Bebe, p. 80).

I wholeheartedly agree with Piaget and French parents here. Kids need to take their own time to reach developmental milestones. And things can get tricky when a parent interferes with that natural progression.

The first year, babies are learning how to eat, sleep, move and babble. At age two, toddlers are beginning to understand their place in the world and assert some independence. At age three, most children still do parallel play, and much of their play is imaginative. At age four, the imaginative play still guides them, and it does so as they become more social. At age five, kids start school and begin the job of learning.

Parental interference can take many forms. Some parents encourage their babies to walk early by holding them up or allowing baby to hold the parents’ fingers while “walking.” This could potentially rob the child of the bi-lateral integration that happens with the crisscross movement involved in crawling.

Some parents attempt to speed up the learning process by teaching abstract academics (math or reading) to a three-year-old. When a child is taught that the world has abstract rights and wrongs, imaginative play takes a back seat. This could rob the child of creativity or even the ability to think critically.

Some parents sign their children up for activity after activity. When a four-year-old child spends more time in the car than on the playground, he doesn’t learn crucial social skills that happen at this age.

When it comes to my own kids, I think that I have allowed this natural progression. I have talked about William’s academic abilities, but he sets that pace, not me. At age two, he started taking an interest in learning his letters, but as soon as he hit age three and started playing imaginatively, that interest in letters came to a screeching halt. At age 7, school is his job, and our only extracurricular activities are piano and occupational therapy. Otherwise, he plays.

For Lucas, I follow his lead. It is only recently (almost 4.5 years old) that he’s shown interest in academics. The Leapfrog Letter Factory video is his favorite. At the same time, he plays very imaginatively with his brother and with friends at school. Learning social skills is definitely his focus, and the job of learning is starting to emerge. He has one extracurricular activity, a “sports sampler” class. We don’t do it because I expect him to become some sports prodigy. We do it because he loves it.

How naturally do your kids hit their milestones? Do you let your child set the pace or do you try to speed things up a bit?

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What I’m Reading, “A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children,” Asynchronous Development

February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One concept that isn’t commonly understood among parents is that most gifted children excel in one or two areas, not all. A child may excel in reading, but do poorly in math. Or they may be a whiz with puzzles but show average ability in verbal development. In fact, because asynchronous development is so prominent among gifted children, many professionals believe it (rather than potential or ability) to be the defining characteristic of giftedness.

This certainly applies to William, which is why I didn’t think he was gifted before I understood the concept. I thought gifted children excelled in every subject. William is a master speller, but would be happy never to do math again (though he’s still working above grade level). He reads three or four grade levels ahead, but his comprehension or spoken verbal skills wouldn’t be considered advanced. Even on a physical level, he is amazing on his bike, but has difficulty catching a ball.

It’s important to understand asynchronous development when considering our children’s education:

“The more highly gifted the child, the more out of sync she is likely to be within herself, with wide differences between areas of strength and areas of relative weakness…. The wide span of abilities and skills has major implications for this child’s curriculum and grade placement. This type of asynchronous child, even though gifted, often needs an individualized educational plan,” (A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children, p. 7).

So if your child struggles with a particular subject, don’t assume that he’s not gifted. Look to the subjects he does excel in and see if he performs above average compared to his peers.

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What I’m Reading: “A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children,” Preface

November 5, 2011 By 7 Comments

I love to read. I read mostly fiction, but I also have a particular affinity for parenting books. I thought I would start a new blog post category to share with you my thoughts about whichever parenting book I’m reading at the moment, chapter by chapter.

Right now, I’m reading A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children. A friend, whose daughter is extremely bright, has inspired me to learn more about gifted children, and she and I are taking a class based on this book. (I’m seeing some gifted traits in William, my eldest.)

Giftedness is not solely genetic

Before you decide that this book isn’t for you, let me assure you that while there is certainly a genetic component of giftedness, it’s not wholly inborn.

“Environment plays an important role as well. Gifted children, like any other children, thrive in supportive environments and fail to thrive in non-supportive environments. Young children can even show an increase in measured intelligence if they are given strong emotional and educational enrichment. Up to seven or eight years of age, IQ scores may increase with enrichment of the child’s environment by 10 to 20 points or more,” (A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children, p. 3).

Toddlers learn best by experiencing their worlds

Now, before you run off to buy flashcards for your two-year-old, let me explain my theories about educating toddlers. I wholeheartedly believe that toddlers learn best by experiencing their environment. They learn best by tackling challenging puzzles, going on nature walks, playing with peers, having tea parties with imaginary friends, listening to you read to them and seeing you read to yourself.

Academic learning of letters and numbers, no matter how much the child may request it, should take a back seat to experiential learning at this age. When a child reaches school age, and school becomes his “job,” then it will be time to dive into abstract academic learning. When you focus too much on abstract letters and numbers too early, the child will miss out on important social and imaginative learning. As you’ll soon read, gifted children often struggle with social skills. Don’t rush your child through important developmental milestones.

Raising gifted children is complex

This brings me to the crux of this book: parenting gifted children isn’t easy.

“One mother said, tongue-in-cheek, ‘My son is afflicted with giftedness.’ Suppose you do have a gifted child living in your house. This means she will grow up to be a contented, responsible, contributing, and valued member of society, right? … Well, not necessarily. Some gifted children with high potential never live up to it. Other factors can get in the way, and often, these are social and emotional factors,” (A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children, p. xiii).

Parents must help their children, gifted or otherwise, find a balance between fitting in and following their own path.

“To help and support gifted children, we must first recognize that they are thoroughly different. Next, we must understand how they are different, because not all gifted children are the same. And finally, as the important and influential adults in their life, we must guide them—not only in academic endeavors, but also in social, interpersonal, and self-development skills,” (A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children, p. xiv).

So while all parents may hope to have children who excel academically, we must understand that parenting them is a complex endeavor. Success in life is measured on many levels, and we must address them all if we are to help our children live up to their fullest potential.

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