Deciding If Early Learning Is Right For your Child

January 9, 2009 by  
Filed under Early Learning

Parents have a huge responsibility in terms of the development of a child both mental and physical. Just as you cannot make the child physically grow faster, it may not be a great idea to push the mental development. With early learning, the focus is on helping your child learn effectively and at a consistent rate giving a solid knowledge base to be built on in future learning.

Carrying out early learning with your child should be something beneficial to both parent and child. If the progress is too fast or intense the child may start to resent the process and any good will be undone. There has been contradicting opinions on the various methods of early learning, what is effective and what is not.

Within the professional field, there is some that encourage early learning and others actively discourage. Just like anything in child rearing, you will begin to understand your child and what their rate of progress is and you can decide for yourself whether early learning is something your child would benefit from.

Researching on early learning will also give you an further insight and can help you make an informed decision. Taking all aspects, the good and the bad into consideration should give a final conclusion. Only you can make that choice.

Many experts believe that a child cannot be pushed to learn something before it has the mental capacity to cope with it. The scientific reasoning is such that the human brain must be developed to a certain level before a concept can be understood and nothing will change that fact. However, there are contrasting stories of how child prodigies have learnt and understood concepts that a child much older could not understand.

Some professionals also maintain that early learning, especially that of a more intensive nature, is all but useless as the child will likely forget what has been learned soon after, due to their infancy. Conversely, some experts believe that it is far more beneficial to teach the child early as it has a higher capacity for learning than older children and vehemently encourage early learning.

Another case against early learning is that the child should be allowed to learn at their own pace and enjoy child like activities such as playing with toys and coloring in. Pushing the child to learn more aggressively such as reading can be harmful to the natural learning process.

However, there is also a belief that the two can be combined to high effect with lessons that are fun and creative for the child, allowing for enjoyment as well as learning. Each parent has the choice of how they would like their child to progress and the love and care you have for your child should help you make the right decision.