Decades ago, schooling for children started well after the age of six or seven. Children spent their pre-school years in the warm and comforting atmosphere at home under the supervision and guidance of, chiefly, their mothers. A secure home atmosphere was made possible by the joint family system with uncles, aunts and cousins around.
Things are very different today. But even now there are different viewpoints. Mothers who have to compulsorily go to work and do not have either her family or the in-laws to be with their children during their working hours have thrown up a host of problems in child-rearing.
Present-day job compulsions force couples to fend for themselves in every way. When a child is born, it brings up a host of responsibilities. They are forced to engage a baby-sitter for the first few years and later put them in play-homes and play-schools. Of course this is possible only for parents who are in the high-income group. We need to ponder over this issue in order to find out the psychological impact of such rearing. One should not ignore the fact that sending a child to a school or crèche too early robs the child of its innate freedom. It is not advisable to set a rigid time-table for very young children and schedule them according to what adults think is best for them.
Alternative views
"What is so wrong in packing off children to school early?" ask one modern mother. "Is it not a lot better for a child to be in a place surrounded by a number of other children?" asks another. "They get into a social atmosphere early in life. With teachers guiding them, amidst lots of toys, singing of nursery rhymes and new games rather than being alone at home with the mother, who may be tied up with a lot of work and is likely to snap at the kids when she is tired out." This reflects the opinion of some others.
Quite a few people completely disagree with the opinion that present-day mothers are subjecting their children to premature pre-schooling. In today’s competitive environment, the earlier the children are exposed to the outside world the better. This may be a harsh reality, but true in some senses. What better place than a play-school for small children to come out of their shells and have the advantage of caring, sharing, disciplining and learning good manners in their formative years? The first few days may be a bit traumatic for some children and their mothers, but in most cases they do get used to it in time and start looking forward to the fun and excitement that nursery schools offer. Children need the company of other children; more so if a he/she is the only child.
I do not subscribe to the view that early schooling makes a child smarter or cleverer. In fact, research by psychologists at the universities of Minnesota and Virginia among others, has indicated that a child who is classified as securely attached to the family during the first few years will relate to others in the right way all through life. A parent-child bond is something that develops out of the long associated relationship during infancy and the early years of a child’s life. The emotional attachment that begins with infancy gets reinforced only if it lasts at least for five continuous years. Children need to identify themselves with the parents and other important family members. It is this identification that sustains their emotional balance when they become adults. When I see small kids playing around a building construction site where both their parents are engaged in labour, though I feel a pang in my heart I also feel, may be they are having a good time. The mother cooks for the husband and kids at the site on a make-shift chulla and the family sits and eats together. This scene gladdens my heart.
If the very protectors and providers decide to push them into an alien atmosphere before they are ready for changes, it may cause a great deal of emotional trauma. Forcing children into adapting too soon to an environment that may be totally different from the one in which they have been living, could make them aggressive and cranky.
One more disadvantage of early schooling is physical vulnerability, and the risk of contracting infections. Children may fall ill more often than before and even develop chronic ailments; added to this, sudden changes in their eating timings and patterns may affect their health adversely. Having been associated with toddlers to teenagers all my working life, I can vouchsafe for the fact that children who have started school early may not have more benefits than children who have started school late.
But modern-day parents seem to consider it a ‘status symbol’ to start their children’s schooling even before their babyhood is over. Why not let them be babies a little longer?
Not many will agree with this view-point; but that is the way I feel.
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