There is a story in the UK Independent today (15 April 2012) saying Nick Clegg, UK deputy prime minister, plans to hire 65000 nursery workers to prepare children from poor backgrounds, as young as two for success at school.<\/p>\n
The much respected Frank Field mp produced a report a year or so ago which found that for many life choice are largely decided by age five. This is not really an original finding. The Jesuits said<\/p>\n
Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.<\/p>\n
I find Nick Clegg’s proposal disturbing as it condones parents devolving care of their children. It seems we’re getting closer and closer to Brave New World all the time.<\/p>\n
Also he seems to have missed the point that parents’ interest and involvement has a huge influence over their child’s development.<\/p>\n
It is my belief that many parent’s drastically underestimate the effect they have on their children’s development. Largely this is because everyone, me included, tends to overlook things that are part of their everyday life. It’s sometimes called “The Elusive Obvious”.<\/p>\n
I wrote Seven Little Mistakes<\/a> to point out some of the reasons I believe some parents do not help their children as much as they could.\u00a0 You can download Seven Little Mistakes<\/a> for free in exchange for leaving your name and email.<\/p>\n And if you don’t want to register your details, I’ll tell you the some of these mistakes here and now.<\/p>\n Not appreciating how huge a contribution they make to their children’s development is one of these reasons.\u00a0 Sometimes it needs an example of when things go badly wrong to highlight parent’s contribution.<\/p>\n www.danisstory.org<\/a> tells the story of Danni, who became known as ‘The Girl In The Window’.<\/p>\n Danielle Crockett was found in Florida 2005. She had been kept locked in a room for the first 7 years of her life, deprived of all human interaction. When found Danielle weighed just 46 pounds. She was locked in a room surrounded by a pile of diapers about 4 foot high. Danielle’s mother was quoted as saying<\/p>\n Ahhm doin the best<\/em> Danielle could not speak when found and as far I know still can’t.<\/p>\n So if your children can speak you’ve done something right.<\/p>\n In his book Outliers<\/em>, Malcolm Gladwell describes how children from better off families tend to do better than children from poorer families. This difference was attributed to the better off parents being more involved in their children\u2019s lives. It was not that they tutored their children, but just they took more of an active interest in how their children were progressing.<\/p>\n The parents in poorer families didn\u2019t intend to affect their children but they made two assumptions<\/p>\n So there you have it, all you have to do is take an active interest in your child\u2019s learning.<\/p>\n Or to put it even more simply take an active interest in your child.<\/p>\n Here I have written more about Outliers<\/a> a truly wonderful book which I urge you to read.<\/p>\n Malcolm based this part of the Outliers on the work of Annette Lareau which is described in her book Unequal Childhoods. There is a review of Annette’s work and on wikipedia.<\/a><\/p>\n
\n ahh kannn<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n
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