Posted on 05/17/2005 4:25:56 AM PDT by tuffydoodle
my kids considered it a fun place to go for a few mornings per week. it is hardly fair to characterize sending a child to preschool from 9-noon, three mornings a week, instutionalization.
But yours is not the situation with a lot of the kids in preschool. A lot of these little tykes are getting shuffled/ shuttled from daycare to pre-school and back to daycare and are in an institutionalized setting for more than 8 hours per day/ 5 days per week.
However, the article says about its first anecdotal subject:
Kevin, who is now 5 years old, became frustrated quite easily, threw temper tantrums and became unruly at his day-care center.
Although more detail is not given, "day-care center" implies 10-12 hours a day, five days a week.
It's true that many children are not being disciplined by their parents, and one reason is that they're rarely WITH their parents!
Perhaps, Mom need to spend more time with little Kevin teaching him how to behave.
i don't know, maybe my son wasn't particularly highspirited, or maybe he knew he would be punished if i heard he could not behave himself. he is in 7th grade now and will get an occasional demerit for talking in class or acting the fool, and i have told him that if you get yourself pegged as a screwoff that is how you will be perceived. He did it with his spanish teacher and has no hope of anything higher than a B in there, bc she thinks he is a screw off. She is not competent, doesn't speak english very well and doesn't have control of the class. i told him you will have incompetent teachers and bosses in life and you just have to learn to deal, because you can control your own behavior and their incompetence doesn't give you a free pass to act up.
Your are correct. This is an all-day day care center and not a two or three morning a week pre-school.
These kids just need a good swat on the bottom occasionally.
"The study recommends that programs develop clear policies on how to deal with students with behavioral problems, like placing them in an alternative program or providing individual behavioral aides. It also recommends requiring that teachers be trained in addressing behavior problems."
Clear policy - Send 'em home and make Mom and Dad do their jobs.
That is the point I was about to make. Anyone that doubts this is occuring only need to look at the hours 'Day care providers' offer. Some are open until midnight.
I appreciate the accurate information.
There are children who have problems in limited-hours preschool programs as well, of course, but that's a different issue. From my observation, some of those are overindulged by their parents, while others simply are not old enough, irrespective of their calendar age.
apparently we are talking about two entirely different things.
I was totally clueless when I had my first baby, too ... and I'd supported myself as a babysitter until I went to college! It's a wonder she survived!
We managed to do it with our kids. But many parents today often view children's tantrums and other such behavior as "expressing themselves". If Junior has learned how to manipulate/ignore Mom and Dad as a preschooler, then how can parents expect him to behave otherwise when he reaches school age?
How about adding a program to teach idiot parents how to raise a kid. These problems with kids are for NO other reason then bad parenting.
Becky
Our local public pre-school program (in Texas)is 8:00AM to 3:00 PM five days a week, just as every other grade in school. That's because they can't afford to run a separate bus schedule for pre-school and because the mothers don't want the kids home because they work. They would be happy to see a longer class day, say till 5:30, but the school can't afford that either. Yes, this is child abuse and our country pays for its neglect of children and their lack of homelife in many, many ways.
Dollars to donuts the vast majority of these kids come from single parent homes.
Many of us remember a time when children did behave in school (and elsewhere) and teachers were able to TEACH. Teachers and students looked forward to a day of creative instruction with only limited interruption from a miscreant. Now teachers arrive at school defensive and antagonized. Creative lesson plans are useless if presented to an uncaring class. If I was teaching today, I would be tempted to buy body armor to wear each day.
So I don't fall for the "they are just being kids" theory. There was a time when (most) kids behaved. Unfortunately, we will most likely never see that again.
So many of the comments on this thread are on the right track.
First of all, the Campfire center featured in the article is the best childcare facility in Fort Worth. In fact, they offer training to other centers, teachers, and home care providers. However, it is a daycare facility, and not what most would consider as a traditional pre-school. This family found a good place for their child, but it is still a daycare center.
Secondly, the lack of discipline in the home is readily apparent in any classroom, but especially so in a full day program for preschoolers. What the article doesn't mention is that these aggressive children often harm other kids through fighting, biting, kicking, rough play, etc. If a child is expelled, one should suspect that other parents may have complained about those types of behaviors directed at their children.
Unfortunately, if this aggression isn't addressed at an early age, wait and see what they do in first grade.
Taking many years off to raise my own children in the home was the best sacrifice we ever made.
Although this article isn't really about "philosophy of schooling," I have to say that, in my opinion, when the system requires its subjects to be regimented by age 5, or else!, then there's something wrong with the system.
When you look at the education of our founders, vs. the "schooling" of children today ... well, there's no question which produced the better educational outcome, and the better outcome for the Republic! (/political rant off)
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