According to the results of a resent study. Children should be put in school as early as age two. The study was authored by Margaret McCain, Dr. Fraser Mustard, (who is recently deceased), and Kerry McCuaig.
In my opinion, this is preposterous. A two their, just learning how to talk, they're are still exploring their environment, you have to be on constant alert, and many are not toilet trained.
The recommendation is justified by social, economic and scientific benefits. This study says that early education results in improved school readiness, graduation levels and impact on future earnings.
Integration of children into school as young as two years old, may help woman get back to work earlier, and move them from part-time to full-time work.
Early childhood education as young as two simply doesn't make sense. At that age, children are still sleeping most of the day, and can't focus.
According to Helen Fowler Neville, B.S., R.N, a child's attention span at age two is limited. A two year old may only spend 30 to 60 seconds on a single activity, with an adults encouragement up to 3 minutes. For details visit parentingexpress.com/media/phrase-excerpt2.html.
At 3 to 4 years old a preschooler may spend 3 to 8 minutes on an interesting activity. I have a 4 year old child, named Nicholas. He loves to read, and at age 3 he started to follow direction's, and pay attention for more than a few minutes.
He was still 3 when we started sending him to school. After attending school for a month, his vocabulary improved, and he started asking for things more without being prompted.
My life changed when he was born. We didn't expect anything, and my significant other showed not signs of pregnancy. All of a sudden he was just there. Over the last 4 years we have been through,"Hell and back". We never wanted children. That is a story for another day.
The first two years of his life were miserable. Everyday, I had to clean crap off the walls, run out to the grocery store with practically no money to spare. My savings practically dried up overnight, and I am still scraping by. If it weren't from continued support from my parents, I would be in over my head.
Every penny counts; however, now that Nicholas is toilet trained, and going to school. It is a bit easier now, but not by much. To make things work at the moment my significant other, can only work part-time hours.
There are some months we can't afford to put food on the table. Government money only goes so far, and we don't have anything except for the basics.
I have an diploma from school in computers, but it doesn't go very far in a small city, with a poor bus system, like Brockville, Ontario, where we currently live. (We were forced to move from Ottawa, due to a lack of job opportunities for anglophones.) Thankfully, over the last three years, I managed to scrap by part-time work and by making additional money, doing web development.
I don't own a car, and we do all our own baking and cooking. We only buy what we need, and stay away from the processed food isles in the store. The most important items we buy are milk, flour, eggs, and rice.
If you are going to have children, you need to ask yourself, "Why?". Why do you want to put yourself through the misery, expense and pain of having children. That is a blog for another day.
Two year old's are alot smarter than people think, according to http://lisahwarren.hubpages.com/hub/Two-Year-Olds-and-Play. At two years old, children just become aware of their own independence. They know what they like and don't like.
I disagree, in my recollection, this only came about when my son was closer to three years old. When he was close to three years old, he started following simple commands, and doing things for himself, like getting a favourite book.
Two year old's, like all young children need positive attention and interaction, with one or both parents, to develop their emotional needs and help with their language skills.
This is true. The more we spent time with Nicholas, the more he seemed to pick up. He liked to be held and talked to, and when we paid attention to him he would laugh.
Today, he is very active and likes to be hugged, read to and is always smiling. He is the only kid in his class photo, who appears to have a genuine smile, according to my significant other.
Thinking back, he would not have been ready to attend school at two years old. At two years old he was not able to walk with me for very long distances, and would not cooperate.
You always had to pay attention to him, or he would be getting taking things off the table, dumping out box's and breaking things. I would bring him to the Early Years Centre, and he was unable to sit down in a group and sing songs with the other children.
At two years old children are not able to sit still for more than a few seconds, they have really short memory span's, and they may not even understand what your saying.
Just how much of what you say at age 2 ,is blah, blah blah? Researchers at the University of Child Language Study Centre showed that children at age two, were able to match up a picture, with a sentence such as, "the rabbit is chasing the duck", more often than would be expected by chance.
This is really hard to believe. It was only at about two and a half years, that my son was able to point out the correct picture in a book. He could not associate sentences with pictures.
The study suggested that infants know more about language structure, than they can articulate, and at a much earlier age than expected. The work also indicated that children may understand the structure of sentences to understand new words, that may help to explain the speed at which infants acquire speech.
How accurate are these studies? In my opinion, every child is different and learns at their own pace, depending on how much time you can spend with him/her.
Studies are done using a series of tests, and observations. For example, the ability of your child to repeat after you, to follow direction, or to put together a puzzle.
In my observation, the government does not spend enough time considering all the impacts of a what a particular study means. They recently changed to full-time kindergarten, and have forced us to start sending our children to school at four years old.
What if your child isn't potty trained yet, and is not able to pay attention very well? Attention span will probably get better once your child starts school, and by the time your child reaches 4 years old, he/she should be just about toilet trained.
Fortunately, I only had one incident after sending my child to school. I just had to run over and clean him up. After that he was pretty good. He even started asking to go to the potty. His attention span vastly improved after the first few weeks. This is due to being in a classroom setting with other kids, and the attention given by teacher's and teacher's assistants.
In doing some research on child development studies, and browsing around the internet, I fully disagree with the recent study, that indicate children should start school as early as age two. All the information I found, goes against the idea of starting children in school as early as age two.
If the government forces this in law, then people will need to stand up and fight against the government. There needs to be massive protests, and discussions in the media.
Starting children in school as early as age 2 is not the only preposterous thing that the government is considering. There are other things that our government is planning, and everyone needs to be prepared.
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