Miseducatn: Prschl Risk

This book is an excellent read for parents and educators/teachers of young children. Many early childhood education center teachers make the mistake of trying to teach too much academics to preschool age children and it is the children's loss. The value of play in learning is underestimated. Elkind gives a professional voice to a very important subject.

Elkind gets criticized a lot for pushing for parents to be "child-centered." I disagree. He's right. If you pursue things for your child taking into account their best interest that is what is called "parenting." The parent centered time is called "before children." With that said, this book, with a great message, is choppy and ambiguous, particularly the first 100 pages. It could probably be condensed. I think his best point in the book is that just because something can be done early does not mean it should be done (his example: toilet training a 6 week old baby through the use of suppositories.) That message, and properly identifying it earlier in the book, would have made this a much better read. With that said, I still gave the book 5 stars because the message is timeless. In this day and age of the pressures built into "No Child Left Behind," college students jumping off of buildings over academic pressure, and kids going to formal programs for things that used to be learned via general human interaction, there is no better time to read this and heed his wise advice. Don't shrug off his message because you think he does not agree with your lifestyle. Simply read what he is saying and see what is worth incorporating and what you can comfortably disregard.

Dr. Elkind is not suggesting that young children should not be taught. Instead he is educating the public on the *appropriate* way to teach these very special members of our population. He offers nine pages of notes/bibliography to support his sound child development theories. At the time of publication he had logged in about 25 years in the early childhood field, which I think makes him an "expert". I have a degree in e.c.e. & taught pre-k for over a decade. Trust me, this book is right on target. I highly recommend it, especially for parents who are feeling pressured to have "superkids".

If you work with preschoolers, you probably have been presured to do activities and/or lessons that are not age appropriate. This book will help you explain what your are doing and why. It also will help you revise your program elimnating some activities and goals and replacing them with better activities and goals.

In the "Questions Parents Ask" section of this book Mr. Elkind is asked: "So what is going to happen? According to you, we are miseducating large numbers of young children, so what does this mean with regard to the future?" Mr. Elkind answers: "I have no crystal ball...My guess is that the teenagers of the nineties will be more neurotic than teenagers today. They will show more obsessions, more compulsions, more phobias, more psychosomatic symptoms than do teenagers today. ...What I cannot really predict is the extent of the problem."This book was published in 1987. The preschoolers of that time are today's teenagers - the same teenagers who are bringing guns to school and killing their teachers and classmates. While I believe the causes for these horrific behaviors are manifold, I also believe Mr. Elkind has made a valid point, he certainly has my attention.