All parents want their children to be little geniuses. They would love to come home one day and see their five-year-old son reading William Shakespeare or Jane Eyre. However, is overstimulation a bad thing? If a five-year-old is intelligent enough to read Shakespeare, does it make him/her mature enough to read Fifty Shades of Grey? Mom and Dad talking to their five-year-old about what they did to make him, one would imagine, is very uncomfortable.
So just how important is it to monitor the readings of your child?
Psychologist Peter Gray, who is a research professor at Boston University, wrote in his book, Freedom to Learn, “Stories provide a simplified simulation world that helps us make sense of and learn to navigate our complex real world. The aspects of our real world that are usually most challenging, most crucial for us to understand, are social aspects. Knowing how to deal with evil as well as love, how to recognise others’ desires and needs, how to behave towards others so as to retain their friendship, and how to earn the respect of the larger society, are among the most important skills we all must develop for a satisfying life. Stories that we like, and that our children like, are about all that. They are not explicitly about how to navigate the social world, in the way that a lecture might be. Rather, they are implicitly about it, so listeners or readers have to construct the lessons for themselves, each in his or her own way. Constructed lessons are far more powerful than those that are imparted explicitly.”
Gray’s idea that stories are simplified simulations of the world is important when deciding what world or how much of it a young child can handle. Topics like racism and sex are sensitive and need to be introduced to the child at an age where he can properly interpret its nuances. However, the ability to identify when someone is happy or sad, or what is good or bad through illustrations in the story, would be more helpful to the development of a young child. The ‘simulated worlds’ should be within the child’s scope of understanding, making it more relatable. The lessons learned would help the child to better navigate the problems he would encounter at that particular point in his development.
Parents should make themselves an important factor in their children learning to read. But with the revolution of the Internet, it has become increasingly difficult to monitor the content to which children are being exposed. Children are also better able to navigate the Internet than their parents. If Mom is having a problem with the computer, she would faster call her seven-year-old than tech support, and the problem would be fixed just as fast. However, this is precisely the reason why some believe it is more important than ever before to monitor what our children read.
To continue reading, purchase Vol.8 #6, 2016 Issue.
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All parents want their children to be little geniuses. They would love to come home one day and see their five-year-old son reading William Shakespeare or Jane Eyre. However, is overstimulation a bad thing? If a five-year-old is intelligent enough to read Shakespeare, does it make him/her mature enough to read Fifty Shades of Grey? Mom and Dad talking to their five-year-old about what they did to make him, one would imagine, is very uncomfortable.
So just how important is it to monitor the readings of your child?
Psychologist Peter Gray, who is a research professor at Boston University, wrote in his book, Freedom to Learn, “Stories provide a simplified simulation world that helps us make sense of and learn to navigate our complex real world. The aspects of our real world that are usually most challenging, most crucial for us to understand, are social aspects. Knowing how to deal with evil as well as love, how to recognise others’ desires and needs, how to behave towards others so as to retain their friendship, and how to earn the respect of the larger society, are among the most important skills we all must develop for a satisfying life. Stories that we like, and that our children like, are about all that. They are not explicitly about how to navigate the social world, in the way that a lecture might be. Rather, they are implicitly about it, so listeners or readers have to construct the lessons for themselves, each in his or her own way. Constructed lessons are far more powerful than those that are imparted explicitly.”
Gray’s idea that stories are simplified simulations of the world is important when deciding what world or how much of it a young child can handle. Topics like racism and sex are sensitive and need to be introduced to the child at an age where he can properly interpret its nuances. However, the ability to identify when someone is happy or sad, or what is good or bad through illustrations in the story, would be more helpful to the development of a young child. The ‘simulated worlds’ should be within the child’s scope of understanding, making it more relatable. The lessons learned would help the child to better navigate the problems he would encounter at that particular point in his development.
Parents should make themselves an important factor in their children learning to read. But with the revolution of the Internet, it has become increasingly difficult to monitor the content to which children are being exposed. Children are also better able to navigate the Internet than their parents. If Mom is having a problem with the computer, she would faster call her seven-year-old than tech support, and the problem would be fixed just as fast. However, this is precisely the reason why some believe it is more important than ever before to monitor what our children read.
To continue reading, purchase Vol.8 #6, 2016 Issue.
Share this post: