Part 2: Is Learning Academics Early the Indicator of Success?

In the short term, learning academics at an early age may not seem harmless to our eyes, maybe even sounding like a great idea starting children early so they have greater success when they are older. Yet, according to research, looking at the long-term effects could lead to serious behavior problems, school drop outs, drug use, and many other serious and harmful situations. In my article “Part 1: Is Learning Academics Early the Indicator of Success?”, I talked a great deal about what learning academics early does to children, and why they should spend most of their time having free, child-directed play. With play bringing many benefits to the table, children should also form healthy and positive relationships with adults and peers, as well enhance their emotional and social skills, in order to have academic success.

Relationships

I can name several times in preschool, particularly with children I had not interacted much with, where I wish a child could listen to me. I have pleaded them to come to circle time. I have asked them if they could clean up. I have asked them what happened when they were upset and they would not answer me. When I saw another teacher do the same thing and the child listened, a realization came mind. A child cannot learn from someone who is not their “somebody.” A child cannot learn until they have steady and healthy relationships with people.

It is important that children are able to gain trust and security with adults so they are able to be “secure, confident, and competent.” Authors of the book, Powerful Interactions, said, “…feelings of security, confidence, and competence free children to take risks, experiment, explore, discover, and stretch their skills and thinking. This link between emotional safety and learning has been identified and described by researchers, who tell us that the quality of teacher-child relationships influences children’s achievement in school.”

It makes sense that a child would be able to learn more effectively from an adult when they have an established, trusting relationship with them. When we ask ourselves, “Which people in our lives have we learned from the most?” the majority of us would answer with people we have a healthy relationship with, such as a parent, maybe a teacher, a spouse, or other close family member. It is also interesting that there is a connection between teacher-child, or adult-child, relationships and academic achievement. Here are a couple interesting facts from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child from Harvard University, regarding this connection:

• Relationships are important to school adjustment, because when a warm and strong relationship is built with the teacher, they are more excited and positive to learn, going to school, and feeling self-confident. The same goes to peer relationships and interactions, with the addition of greater friendships and increased performance in the classroom.
• Early childhood education should focus on young children’s, “reciprocal learning interactions with the teachers and peers rather than isolated ‘pre-academic’ work, and it should capitalize on children’s natural interests and intrinsic drive to learn, rather than follow an adult-determined agenda.”

These trusting relationships can mean the difference for a young child’s learning, not only for academic success, but for the need to be loved, nurtured, and cared for. I believe those are essential for every human being in order to function in our society, especially for those young children, whose early years shape the results of their futures.

Emotional/Social Development

The most common practice in my preschool teaching is helping children recognize and regulate their emotions and build social skills. I have to prepare myself mentally to know what to do when certain occurrences may happen and what the outcomes of it may be. I handle children who get upset when a toy is taken from them, when children do not want to share, when children do not want to play with others, when there is anxiety over asking a child if they could have a turn with a toy, expressing emotions to others, and many others that I could go on naming. Imagine if children did not have these emotional and social skills before going into Kindergarten, or elementary school, in general? Imagine what that would mean for them when they are developing teenagers and adults? I bet we do not even have to imagine it. I bet we know it and can see it with our eyes right now.

Many adults can get frustrated when children “misbehave” or see that they are hurting other children’s feelings. One of my hot buttons as a preschool teacher is when children are not able to recognize other children’s emotions and feel sympathy for them, or a feeling to want to help them feel better. When a child hurts another to get what they want and not feel any sense of guilt, I tend to ask them in my head, “Why can you not see that you hurt that child? Do you not understand that you just made that child cry?” Then I remind myself that they really do not understand. They live in a very egocentric part of their lives and have not developed the skills to comprehend other’s emotions, or even their own. They need to be taught those skills and the preschool age is the perfect time for children to develop them.

In an article called, “A 19-Year Study Reveals Kindergarten Students With These 2 Skills Are Twice as Likely to Obtain a College Degree,” by Amy Morin, author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, she mentioned an interesting study that was done at Penn State and Duke University where researchers interviewed kindergarten teachers about their children’s social and emotional development. The teachers gave information about how well the children shared, listened to others, solved problems with their peers, and were helpful. The researchers followed up on those children when they were adults and noticed that those who scored the highest socially and emotionally fared better overall.

Amy Morin said, “With all the evidence that supports the importance of social and emotional skills, isn’t it incredible to think that we still pour most of our resources into teaching kids academic skills? From Baby Einstein music to flashcards for toddlers, there are tons of products on the market that promise to help your kids succeed. But none of those products will actually help your kids become emotionally competent. You have to teach those skills yourself — your kids won’t learn them in school.”

Another item of consideration connecting emotional and social skills to academic skills comes from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, the same authors who shared their research on relationships. They mentioned that, “All early childhood programs, including Head Start, must balance their focus on cognition and literacy skills with significant attention to emotional and social development. Children clearly need the social and emotional capabilities that enable them to sit still in a classroom, pay attention, and get along with their classmates just as much as they need the cognitive skills required to master the reading and math concepts taught in kindergarten.”

With all this information gathered, we can conclude that emotional and social skills are vital for a children growing in a healthy way and have academic success. But the question is, how can we help children develop these skills? Here are seven strategies I use as a preschool teacher, that have been confirmed by research, you can do to help children develop these important skills:

1. Help children label their emotions: Teaching children about different emotions is the first step for helping a child understand what they are feeling. Teach them what it means to feel happy, sad, angry, scared, or embarrassed. Discuss what situations make the child feel those emotions. Point out other children’s emotions and help the child recognize them and why those children might be having those feelings.
2. Validate the child’s emotions: Instead of forming a solution for the child, giving them what they want, telling the child it is going to be “okay”, or even brushing off what the child is feeling, acknowledge what they are feeling and show that you care about how they feel. Say statements such as, “I see that you are very sad,” or “You look sad because you are making this face,” and make the face the child is making. Try to empathize with the child, and a way to do that is putting yourself in the child’s shoes. If a child took something away from you without asking, how would it make you feel? Our emotions and children’s emotions are not much different.
3. Understand why the child is having certain emotions: After acknowledging their emotions, ask the child what happened. If the child is crying too hard and cannot speak, try different ways to help the child calm down, such as taking slow, deep breaths, continue acknowledging their emotions, or asking if you could hug or hold them. Once they are calm ask questions about what made them feel a certain way and again acknowledge that you understand why that made them feel sad, angry, scared, or embarrassed.
4. Allow the child to solve the problem: This step is the most vital one in helping them build emotional and social skills. It allows them to practice their autonomy in making a choice for how they can feel better. Ask the child, “What can we do that can help you feel better?” and allow the child to come up with solutions. The adult can offer suggestions and choices that a child can do and make, but it should ultimately be up to the child to make the decision.
5. Correct the behavior, not the emotion: This is a step that Amy Morin mentioned in her book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do that I thought was really significant to point out. Help children understand that it is okay to feel sad, angry, scared, or embarrassed sometimes, but also help them understand that using aggressive behavior or screaming at the top of their lungs is not. Use the previous step in allowing the child to figure out something they could do to cope with the emotion instead of using a behavior that could hurt someone or themselves.
6. Teach children to ask: If a child wants to play with a toy, tell them they should ask the child playing with it if they could have a turn. If a child wants to play with someone, tell them they should ask if they could play with them. It is that simple. If the child is scared to ask, the adult can help by acknowledging what they are feeling, going with the child when they ask, and giving them a script on what to say, such as, “Sarah, may I have a turn playing with that doll?”
7. Teach children to express their emotions to others and problem solve together: This is a strategy I use often with children in preschool and have seen positive results. When a child is upset that another child hurt them, acknowledge what the child is feeling and ask if they would like to tell the other child how, whatever they did, made them feel. An example could be a girl was digging with a shovel in the sandbox and a boy comes over, takes the shovel from the girl, and starts digging with it. The girl gets upset and an adult comes over to see what the problem was. He or she may say, “I see that you are sad. What happened here?” The girl explains that the boy took the shovel away from her when she was digging. “I see how that would make you sad. Would you like to tell him how that made you feel?” The girl will tell the boy that she was playing with the shovel and it made her sad when he took it from her. The boy may apologize and give the shovel back, but he could also say, “But I want to use the shovel!” That is when the adult may say, “We have a problem here. She wants to dig with the shovel, and you want to dig with the shovel. So what are we going to do so both of you can dig and be happy?” This is a critical part in the children’s social and emotional development that should not be skipped. Instead of making the solution for them, or taking away the shovel, allow the children to come up with the solution themselves. That way, they can both develop those emotional and social skills, as well as enhance their problem solving ability, developing autonomy, and helping others feel pleased and satisfied. The boy comes up with a solution saying that he saw another shovel somewhere in the park and he could use that. He gives the shovel back to the girl, goes to find the other shovel, and they dig together.

To summarize, adults can understand that they need to learn how to cope with their emotions so they can have success in our careers, relationships and personal lives. They can understand that in order to have successful careers and relationships, they must have great social skills. They can understand that it can be a lonely, depressing, and miserable life without secure relationships with people. That is why it is up to adults to form healthy and trusting relationships with children and teach them, the future generation, emotional and social skills so they can thrive not only academically, but in life itself.

References:

Dombro, Amy Laura, Jablon, Judy, Stetson, Charlotte (2011). Powerful Interactions. NAEYC. Pg. 29.

Morin, Amy (2017). A 19-Year Study Reveals Kindergarten Students With These 2 Skills Are Twice as Likely to Obtain a College Degree. Inc.com. https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/kindergarteners-with-these-two-skills-are-twice-as-likely-to-get-a-college-degree-according-to-a-19-year-study.html

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. Children’s Emotional Development is Built into the Architecture of Their Brains. Harvard University. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/childrens-emotional-development-is-built-into-the-architecture-of-their-brains/

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. Young Children Develop in an Environment of Relationships. Harvard University. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/wp1/