Parents are often seen bragging about their kid’s learning milestones – ‘my son is only 3 years, and he can already read sentences!’, or ‘my daughter knew the entire multiplication tables by the age of 6’ etc etc.
To earn these bragging rights, parents put considerable pressure on young kids to learn things quicker than other children of similar age group. However, in this case, faster is not necessarily better. There are appropriate periods in the life of a child to learn particular items. For example, children learn to count by age 4, do simple one-digit additions by age 5, learn the concept of borrowing and carrying by age 6.
In reading and writing too, there are appropriate time-periods for different milestones. While these milestones differ slightly from children to children, we would only create emotional stress and resistance towards learning if we try to push a child before he is ready to learn a concept.
There could be several harmful effects if we try to rush a child to learn something before he is ready. He may resort to memorizing, because the concept is too difficult for him to understand. In the early years, if the core concepts of language and mathematics are memorized, rather than understood – it leads to a weak foundation which may haunt him for life. But the most harmful effect is that it may kill the ‘joy of learning’ – leading to a lifetime of resistance towards education.
Our kids should eventually learn to compete – because competition is part of life. But they should never compete to learn, especially at such a young age.
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