Better Late Than Early

Better Late Than Early by Raymond & Dorothy Moore

This is an excerpt taken from the book 'Better Late Than Early' by Raymond & Dorothy Moore

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The family and the home are the foundation of our society. Whatever the shifting theories of child development, the importance of the family and the home has never been obliterated. What the child needs most to grow well is a warm one-to-one relationship with a parent (or parent figure) who is always there to comfort and guide him. During the first crucial eight years, home should be the child's only nest and parents the teachers for their children. These are the years when the child requires affection and emotional security more than learning skills, when he should be able to get ready for life unfettered by school rules.

There are exceptions to our home-care thesis, of course--glaring ones. And they include, perhaps, as many as 20 to 25% of our children. The handicapped child -- blind, crippled, spastic or deaf, who deserves the best clinical help we can find. The disadvantaged child, the prisoner of the ghetto or the mountain hollow, whose life must be enriched. The deprived child, whether he lives in a tenement or a mansion, whose parents are indifferent to, or overly indulgent, or ignorant of his needs. The normal child whose mother is forced by stark financial need to work for a living outside the home. Many, if not all, of these children should be given out-of-home care in environments that substitute for homes as closely as possible. We cannot overstress the importance of a home-like atmosphere, where adults respond warmly to children. In Switzerland, where children are normally thought to receive the best possible preschool care, Marie Meierhofer , director of a Zurich clinic, studied 500 babies in the city day nurseries. She found that "...many of the children were apathetic, had facial expressions of compressed eyes when approached." These signs of depression Dr. Meierhofer blamed almost entirely on isolation or lack of personal care. Thus, for the great majority of children, their own homes are still the best places for their early care.

Parents, by and large, are deeply concerned for the welfare of their children. Many of them will make sacrifices to insure their youngsters' good. But there are those who do not hide their urge to get "the kids" out from under their feet. They welcome any idea, neighbor-hood pressure or legislation that offers a release and allows them to send their children to kindergarten or nursery school.

Yet it is more a denial of motherhood -- and fatherhood -- to unnecessarily send youngsters away from home before they are ready. Some parents say all they want is a little freedom or they simply have too much to do. So it is a question of parental values: Who and what comes first -- parent's liberty or their children's welfare? True freedom implies responsibility to protect another person's liberties. If the young child develops best at home, then it is the greater loss for him, and ultimately society, if he is sent elsewhere.

Many families, of course, reflect our technological and mobile society with its shifting environments and life styles. There is the current and widely circulated myth that the family is no longer a viable institution and should be shelved. Couple that myth with the sharply increased number of mothers working outside the home and it is no wonder that family life has become less and less secure. Unsettled parents with unsettled children reach out for some kind -- any kind -- of help or assurance. Families suffering from low self-worth or lack of sound information are offered assistance by many kinds of business and professional people. Some of these sources do have wisdom and deep concern for children's developmental needs. But others are ready to take the parents' place for a few hours, or a day or a week simply for profit. Ultimately, all these factors display far less concern for children than for adults. Yet it is the little children who are far more vulnerable.

Another serious influence on the family has been those professionals who insist that to deny preschool experience to the normal child is educationally and psychologically unsound. But such people commonly make a basic assumption that is not true. They assume that the rapid development of a young child's intellect requires stimulation of a school-type program.

Such reasoning has resulted largely from Dr. Benjamin Bloom's famed conclusion that "...in terms of intelligence measured at age 17, from conception to age 4 the individual develops 50% of his mature intelligence". Learning psychologist Arthur Jensen, after carefully checking the Bloom report and applauding its more reliable aspects, specifically warns that finding half the statistical variance of adult intelligence by age 4 does not lead to the conclusion that people develop 50% of their mature intelligence by age 4. This is one of those instances in which statistical reasoning leads to an unwarranted conclusion.

Not only have Bloom's conclusions been misused, but they were not entirely sound in the first place. Nancy Bayley, University of California child psychologist from whose well-known studies Bloom obtained data and, in part, drew his conclusions, later noted that Bloom's theory depends on an inadequate definition of intelligence as a unitary mental property. Actually, a child's "mature intelligence" at this period is not synonymous with understanding or ability to reason. It is, rather, a potential ability to reason or to understand. Yet Bloom's misleading conclusion constitutes one of the most frequent bases of recent preschool planning.

Many special interests are involved in the dispute over early childhood education; these interests range from substantial governmental investments to simple parental freedoms. There are commercial ventures in educational institutions, equipment, supplies and personnel; professional associations, political action groups, minority groups and labor unions; and a variety of other persons and groups caught up in the day-care and preschool movement. These vested interest have accomplished much good, but they should be placed in clear and firm perspective against two paramount goals: to insure the welfare of the child, including his optimum development; and to restore the unity and integrity of the family, providing parents with information on how to meet the developmental needs of their children. It is vital to implement these goals through programs that can be administered simply, with budgets that can be financed reasonably. If we place vested interests ahead of these interrelated goals, we risk the welfare and liberties of our children -- a deprivation of the worst order.

In order to avoid such deprivation, parents must clearly understand the child's needs and how to relate to them. One of the principal skills of a successful teacher is understanding each child's state of readiness for a particular lesson or skill. Likewise, a good parent must have a knowledge of the child's maturing processes. Discussion of the child's maturity levels and when he is ready for school begins in Chapter 4. We call the coming together of his various maturities the IML, for integrated maturity level.

It is time to look at the facts instead of at the neighbors. Just because "everyone is doing it," does not mean that "it" is safe or good or secure for children. Some parents want their children to have every advantage, and any new gate to learning seems to them a guarantee of personal fulfillment and a harbinger of family honor. There are also parents who reason that, if special public care is good for the handicapped or the deprived, it must be good for their children. But this is like sending all healthy children to the hospital to be sure that they get the same benefits as the youngsters who are sick.

In part, poor communication is responsible for the present early schooling trend. For one thing, information has not been translated from the technical jargon of the researcher to the everyday language of the parent and educational planner. For another, many researchers, intent on digging up new facts, rely on other people to interrelate their data with that of different scientists and to use this information for educational planning.

For years, a number of leading specialist in early childhood education and special education have been concerned that planners and legislators were ignoring the facts established by early childhood research. Earl Schaefer of the University of North Carolina, former head of early childhood research for National Institutes of Health, say that "Although much. . .[ECE] research data has been generated during the last decade . . . they have . . . as yet had minimal impact on educational planning . . ." Speaking more strongly, Morvin Wirtz of Western Michigan University, former director of the federal Division of Education of the Handicapped and Rehabilitation, insists that " . . . many of our programs in early childhood education operate from the gut level without basis in research. Drawers are full of research evidence, but they are ignored."

We would be aghast at such a performance in medical science. We would not tolerate such ignorance even in the manufacture of our cars. Yet our gullibility seems almost without bounds when educators and legislators propose to shape our children. Whether or not these planners are well-intentioned is not the issue here. The real issue is: What is best for our children?

In view of research findings on children's needs and on the performance of preschools and care centers, more and more people are asking questions about early childhood education. Dale Meers, a Washington, D.C. psychoanalyst and researcher, was once an avid proponent of early schooling. But he now questions providing day care for all children simply because it is needed by the disadvantaged. He asks if we would give methadone, the drug cure, to all adults simply because it is needed by addicts. Other early childhood specialists are modifying or reversing their blanket endorsements of preschool. The consensus of scientific evidence on the home versus the preschool is clear for the majority of children. They receive a bettrer foundation for future development and learning from a secure and responsive home environment in which understanding parents are the teachers. Thus, before enrolling a child in the local preschool or care center, one should ask if he will clearly be better off there than at home.

Many leading early childhood specialists are beginning to mark out a new course. Their basic consideration is to harmoniously balance a child's faculties with his physical and emotional development. They stress that every child should be carefully screened at a very early age to determine if he has any learning handicaps, and periodic checkups should follow thereafter. For they reason that while the development of the mind is important, the body is the powerhouse for the young child's brain and central nervous system. A sound body and stable emotions provide a strong foundation for mental and social maturity. Without this soundness and stability, the child will not realize his greatest potential.

This chapter was taken from the book Better Late Than Early.
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