Available at 
Tweet
The first graders brought this home with them and I thought it was such a neat article...I hope you all like it too...
by Ada Alden, M.A., CFLE
Eden Prairie Family Center
My mother cooked spaghetti sauce all day on the back of the stove. Ingredients were always fresh and added at the proper time. My mother understood slow simmer until done.
My mother was not a Ragu-type problem solver. "Some things take time," she assured me. some things are not "flash in the pan" do it "auick and easy" deals. conscientious parenting requires simmer practices.
We seem to be living in a let's-hurry-and-microwave-our-way-through-life track. We are hurrying our children and their growth process. We dress them up like adults too soon. We want them to earn money too soon. We want them to be involved in organized sports too soon. We want to teach reading and math too soon.
Children are not really much diffrent developmentally from those who slogged through the mud with their parents on covered wagons heading wets. The times are expressway driven, but our children still ache for a sandbox way of life.
We know good stuff about children. We know two year olds cannot share. They wiell share only after they know they possess. Three years olds are just learning about words in sentences. Three year olds will only learn how to talk if included in conversations. Too many young children are learning how to fight from Ninjas, not how to talk from caregivers.
We know four year olds can't always tell the truth. Four year olds by definition are fanciful, fantasy-loving make believers. Six year olds show extremes in behavior. They laugh and cry easily, loving one minute and being hostile in the next. Elementary school children need to learn not only how to talk, but when and what is appropriate to say.
Adolescents first must be self-centered before they can be other-centered. Other-centeredness comes only after adolescents have figured out who they are and what they are.
Too many adults are hurrying the process. They want to adultify their children so their behavior might be better understood. It is easier to understand people when they are just like us. Children aren't just like us. Children are still in process. I wish more adults would recognize that children need time to simmer. Children should be respected and accepted.
Marva Collins, the pioneering Chicago educator said, "We want brilliant children, but we don't want to spend time creating them." My mother knew about time. Kids and good sauce need to simmer.
by Ada Alden, M.A., CFLE
Eden Prairie Family Center
My mother cooked spaghetti sauce all day on the back of the stove. Ingredients were always fresh and added at the proper time. My mother understood slow simmer until done.
My mother was not a Ragu-type problem solver. "Some things take time," she assured me. some things are not "flash in the pan" do it "auick and easy" deals. conscientious parenting requires simmer practices.
We seem to be living in a let's-hurry-and-microwave-our-way-through-life track. We are hurrying our children and their growth process. We dress them up like adults too soon. We want them to earn money too soon. We want them to be involved in organized sports too soon. We want to teach reading and math too soon.
Children are not really much diffrent developmentally from those who slogged through the mud with their parents on covered wagons heading wets. The times are expressway driven, but our children still ache for a sandbox way of life.
We know good stuff about children. We know two year olds cannot share. They wiell share only after they know they possess. Three years olds are just learning about words in sentences. Three year olds will only learn how to talk if included in conversations. Too many young children are learning how to fight from Ninjas, not how to talk from caregivers.
We know four year olds can't always tell the truth. Four year olds by definition are fanciful, fantasy-loving make believers. Six year olds show extremes in behavior. They laugh and cry easily, loving one minute and being hostile in the next. Elementary school children need to learn not only how to talk, but when and what is appropriate to say.
Adolescents first must be self-centered before they can be other-centered. Other-centeredness comes only after adolescents have figured out who they are and what they are.
Too many adults are hurrying the process. They want to adultify their children so their behavior might be better understood. It is easier to understand people when they are just like us. Children aren't just like us. Children are still in process. I wish more adults would recognize that children need time to simmer. Children should be respected and accepted.
Marva Collins, the pioneering Chicago educator said, "We want brilliant children, but we don't want to spend time creating them." My mother knew about time. Kids and good sauce need to simmer.
Comment