One day, I walked into my sister's house and found her sitting in front of a bunch of books and papers with her daughter. "God! I hate doing projects!" she said in exasperation. As an educator, I had to chuckle since it really wasn't her job to do the project! Clearly, she was helping her daughter and not doing the entire job herself but I could see it was taking a heck of a lot out of her.

I have offered to do tutoring for children in the past and I received a call from a woman one day I found rather disturbing. She explained that her child in Kindergarten needed help and she was finding it very frustrating trying to get her daughter to put pencil to paper. She was beside herself that her daughter showed no interest in learning how to print and was worried that she may have real problems in her academic life if the problem was not nipped in the bud. The child was four years old! My initial reaction was, "Whoa! Put the pencil down and breathe!"

Clearly this woman was experiencing far too much anxiety and had too high expectations for her four year old. I suggested some ideas to ready her child for future academic work and will share a few more ideas with you to help your child with life in primary school in general.

Try not to compare your child with your sister's/brother's/friend's brilliant overachiever child. Children who can print perfectly at the age of four are rare indeed and to expect your child to live up to such high expectations is unrealistic. Your child is his or her own person. They have their own varying degrees of ability and should be gently encouraged and challenged but never pushed! Should your child sense you stressing out because he or she isn't spelling their own name correctly at 4 or 5, their own sense of confidence and ability to do work in school will quickly go down the tubes. We want to keep their self esteem high and learning fun at this age. Over-reacting can sink your child into despair. It is no wonder this four year old did not show any interest in school. Parental expectations of her were way too high and she was compared to a cousin who was apparently brilliant. Comparisons are dangerous and unhealthy. They are anxiety-provoking. Try to avoid them at all costs.
At the early ages of 3, 4 and 5, children should not recognize learning as work as a general rule - particularly at home. To sit them at a table and try to teach them their colours,numbers, printing, etc. may be well intentioned but somewhat misguided.

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