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Probably like many of you I mostly hang out around middle class, highly involved parents. But sometimes I find myself around other parents who are not as involved. I think those other parents don't see themselves as the primary impact on their children; they probably don't see themselves as the primary impact even on their own lives.

Among my peer group there are kids with learning problems and disabilities and all sorts of things. And the parents are watching and notice these problems, and work hard to resolve the problems, and reach out (and know how to reach out) for help. Among those other parents many kids are fine, and will develop quite normally, but there are also kids with learning problems, disabilities, health problems – things that won't just be fine without intervention. And I've repeatedly seen those other parents just not notice, to resign themselves (and thus their children) to these limits.

With this in mind I've realized a lot of rules and materials aren't directed towards me or my peers. These "what your children should know by kindergarten" lists are mostly to catch the kids who are in real trouble, but their parents haven't noticed. (The parents who notice don't particularly need extra reminders that they need to give their children extra help.) A lot of programming and structure is intended to make up for a lack of structure for this particular group of kids.

The involved parents of course always make this about themselves (and me too). Because we're involved, because we're constantly asking "should I worry about this?", because we believe we can make a difference through our effort. So the interventions intended to bring up one set of kids instead get applied – and applied most vigorously! – to an entirely different set of kids that probably didn't need any of it.

And then we go on boards and talk about these lists and are shocked at how limited the expectations of a 4-year-old are (because the lists are intended only to catch kids in trouble) and we start to brag about our kids because we're trying so hard to do the right thing and it's never clear if we are.

> That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books.

One of my earliest (and fondest) memories is about my mother reading "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" to 4-year old me, even though she had had a hard day of work behind her. It got me so hooked to stories and books that I learned to read almost all by myself when I was five.

Proud moment: catching the kid up at midnight reading. I can verify it's actually impossible to tell a child off for something you both did and totally approve of.
Even worse: getting caught doing midnight reading by your 2 year old. Who absolutely isn't going to tell you off, but joins you. hashtagproudmomentsinparenting
My soon to be 12 year old has been 'sneaking' books/lights into his room for most of the last decade. It is a cool problem to have, except he tends to do it to excess, and end up not getting much sleep. For days at a time.

Serious passion for reading, though we did end up having to 'bring the hammer down' and shake him down for lights before bed, alas.

The single biggest predictor of high academic achievement is socioeconomic status of parents.
Which we could shorten to:

"The single biggest predictor of achievement is achievement"

That it has predictive value doesn't mean it's the cause.

Enjoy your kids. This means if you enjoy reading books, you should read books with your kids.

Our older daughter hated to be read to - she just wanted to get to the next page and look at the pictures. After getting my fingers jammed in her board books one too many times I just let her enjoy it. In elementary school she really didn't want to do her 20 minute reading assighments.

Now she and her sister, who loved being read to, are both doing just fine and they both read piles and piles of books.

This is a big debate in my household. I look at the clear stand-out stars of the world and it is undeniable that the vast majority of them started working on some aspect of their talent between 4 and 6. Whether it be Golf (Tiger woods), Violin (Itzhak Perlman), Cello (Yo-Yo Ma) Mathematics (Neumann) or really any other field, the absolute dominant people started early - even holding the prodigies aside.

Most importantly though these people were able to cultivate their talents in an environment that encouraged practice and dedication.

I think the right answer is that a 4 year old should be exposed to many different things, see what they gravitate towards and then given narrow and focused instruction on that[1].

I used to believe in the idea of working on weaknesses, but that is only a good way to be "well rounded" - which is almost worthless today. If you want to really excel in the world you need to be the best at a narrow skill and you do that by working really hard at what you are already naturally good at from as early as possible.

[1]I will say that people do need cross-disciplinary knowledge to really make breakthroughs in fields so that is an important aspect that should be taken into consideration

I'd like to see a source that "the vast majority of them started working on some aspect of their talent between 4 and 6".

I'm not claiming you are wrong, only that I am unconvinced by a couple of examples.

Be careful what you wish for. Narrow focus is great, as long as you make the right bets. In the book "Fast Food Nation", there's a great profile of a talented hockey player whose career is sidelined by injury... after thousands of hours of practice and work, he's running a chain pizza joint.

The Tiger Woods of world are brilliant in their fields, but often leave behind a train-wreck of personal life issues in their wake.

I cannot help but wonder if you actually got what the article says. Sure, forcing your 4 year old to practice some skill for hours each day might lead to her becoming a "stand-out star" in that field. But will it also lead to her becoming a confident, balanced, loving, gentle and caring person?

Will you look back to her childhood without regrets? Will she?

My goal as a parent is to help my children discover who they are, follow their interests and talents, and grow up to be independent adults, with the emotional maturity to handle the ups and down of this society, the adaptability to deal with whatever may come their way, and the self-direction to make the changes needed in their own lives to build happiness for them and for their families.

If they are great at something, and develop talents that make them world famous, that would be cool. But so few people do that, I cannot realistically even consider that result in my parenting choices.

I disagree with you.

Many of the careers that get a lot of prestige - law, medicine, business management, etc - all require that you understand a variety of fields, or are at least greatly aided by understanding a second field in depth in addition to the one primarily related to your career.

Similarly, if you're not competent in a few fields (math, reading, writing, basic computer operation), you're simply going to lose out to more competent peers in the workplace.

Finally, your annotation makes an extremely important point: people we see making breakthroughs in fields - the truly top tier academics for instance - are well known for working in multiple fields and having wide interests. You cite an example yourself when you mention Neumann, who made contributions to a wide variety of math, led the team that invented the first computer, worked on several military projects, and contributed to a few tangential fields occasionally, for example applying game theory (which he invented) to economics.

In reality, the truly dominant people tend to be polymaths, and the middle to middle-top tier tend to be highly specialized.

This is a difference between driving discipline into your child to do something and nurturing them because they enjoy it. Teaching your kid that discipline pays off, show them what the superstars of their subject can achieve if they have the self discipline to drive themselves and then just support them in their pursuit of that. If their pursuit wanes, that's okay. It doesn't mean you should run them into the ground about it. Move onto whatever they're currently interest in and nurture that. Let them be kids and help them to get the most they can out of their interests. Find ways to keep it fascinating and fun for them and wanting to learn more, but when there comes a time they want to move onto something else, that's okay too.

I believe your child should be as well rounded or as focused as they feel the need to be. The world needs generalists and it needs specialists. The Yo-Yo Mas, Tiger Woods' and Michael Phelps' of this world may be superstars, but they needed a team of generalists coordinating their rise to stardom; Your child may be a generalist, the glue that holds everything together and the oil that makes the machine work. The one who can make sense of the chaos of the world around them and bring order and harmony. There is great value in that too.

You can't say the well rounded are any more or less worthy or worthless than the superstars. All are needed and all are as valuable as one another.

The smallest pin in a watch as as important as the largest cog, but without a drive mechanism or hands, the piece is worthless. It is only when all the parts come together in concert that it is worth something. Each of the parts is a specialist at what they do, doing one thing extremely well; each a vital piece of the puzzle. But it takes the watchmaker, the generalist who understands the value of all the pieces together, who has the skill (and a lot of patience) to bring them together as a whole that makes the result something useful.

For years I have played table tennis, and seen various young, talented and ambitious players rise through the ranks, sometimes to a point where they played in the men's leagues at 14 or 15 years, because there wasn't much competition in the youth leagues.

And while I didn't count them, I'd say that about two thirds of them stopped progressing (and then playing) somewhere between age 16 and 18. Mostly they developed other interests, or lost motivation for reasons unknown to me.

So I'd be very careful with putting high stakes on very narrow interests; it can easily become a dead end.

(FWIW I don't consider that time "lost" or anything; they surely learned a lot about self confidence, team play, reliability and other traits; it's just that it sounds that you as a parent might be rather disappointed when your hypothetical child loses interest in his narrow focus).

Lots of people object to what you are saying, but I'm relieved to hear someone say it. Many 'specializations' are actually worlds unto themselves, with endless amounts of things to learn. They are fun to explore (for a kid of a specific bent) and there is no reason not to explore them as early as possible, just as I wasted no time in taking my toddler on hikes to see parts of the world different than where we live. In my own life, there were many things I regretted learning about until it was too late to devote much time to them.

It seems to me that the biggest advantage to being a generalist is that as parents, we can identify what a kid is good at, and can start him down that road. Things go wrong when a parent is not himself enough of a generalist to figure out what the kid likes, and just pushes him toward something random or prestigious.

As for those that object to what you say, I wonder why they insist on putting words in your mouth. Perhaps they don't believe that a young kid could be interested in any deep topic without coercion; which relieves them of the responsibility to try to find what this topic could be. But my attitude is that as a parent, I may not find it, or maybe it's not there, but the potential upsides are large enough that I will keep thinking about it.

I started playing violin when I was pretty young (maybe 4)? I quit at about age 12, couldn't stand it anymore. It was actually a bit of a showdown with my parents, and I definitely had to just deal with the storm of disapproval.

I came to love music again later in life, and I do play now, fiddle as well as a few other instruments.

Here are some of my absolute favorite "violinists" (probably should call them fiddle players). By and large, they came to violin later in life, though with great interest in music. They are very different musicians from classical players, no doubt, but they're the type of musicians I probably should have been. I honestly think I was harmed as a musician by classical teachers who were constantly in my business, messing around with how I held the bow.

There are so many kids nowadays who can play a nearly flawless etude. Some show the the grimaces and gestures of someone who plays with passion, but I still wonder if it is an affectation, a teacher, noticing it has gotten a little mechanical, says "but with more passion… good, good" (as student playing etude flawlessly after a gazillion practices now affects the swaying and grimaces that seem to properly convey requested passion)

Personally, I'd much rather be Boyd Tinsley or Ketch Secor than a top classical musician, but that's probably because I'd much rather listen to their music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyd_Tinsley

"He was not an avid music lover or player. He learned violin by accidentally signing up for a middle school orchestra class, under the impression that guitar would be taught. The idea of learning the violin, however, was interesting enough for him that he stuck with it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posey_Rorer

"He suffered from severely clubbed feet for the first 30 years of his life. At the age of 10 he learned to play the banjo but soon switched to the fiddle. In 1917, he moved to West Virginia but due to the flu epidemic of 1919, he had to return to Virginia."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassar_Clements

He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7 and the first song he learned was "There's an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor". Soon, Clements formed a local string band with two first cousins, Red and Gerald. Gerald was the fiddle player and when he got married and left, Clements had to pick up the fiddle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luderin_Darbone He was born in Evangeline and raised in Orangefield, Texas. His parents gave him his first fiddle at the age of 12 and he learned to play through a correspondence course.

I'm also a big fan of Ketch decor from Old Crow Medicine Show (who also learned late in life).

http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Blogs/Revue/November-2010/Q...

"The act of fiddle playing is a lifetime relationship. You have good spells and bad turns, and while you celebrate all your time together, it doesn’t mean it’s all rosy. I’ve been playing since I was 18, and learning to play in Rockingham County, NC, but it’s taken me this long—14 years—to figure out not to fall over on the dance floor and step all over her feet."

I look at the clear stand-out stars of the world and it is undeniable that the vast majority of them started working on some aspect of their talent between 4 and 6.

The development of a standout isn't generally talked about unless there's a story to be told, so while you will hear the story about the kid who started young, cute pictures as evidence, you won't hear about the ones who didn't (unless it's so late that it, again, becomes worthy of a story).

Further, isn't that logic vulnerable to a dangerous survivorship bias? For every Woods or Perlman, how many kids grew to absolutely hate an activity because instead of it being fun or developing, it became the hangup of a parent expecting their child to be an extreme exception? How many simply weren't standouts, so they spent much of their youth forced to do an activity that they ended up being merely average at?

Missing is the most important advice for toddler-parenting: ignore what other toddler parents are saying. If you want advice get if from parents with older kids.
She should know that it is always okay to paint the sky orange and give cats 6 legs.

I'll be sending this to my son's preschool teacher who marks her pupils' art with a red pen[1]. He's attends one of the "better" schools in Johannesburg.

[1] Later used to diagnose "disorders" and send kids for occupational therapy - part of a huge and well-publicised racket in the area -the rich northern suburbs of Johannesburg could be the OT capital of the world, looking at diagnosis rates.

I feel like you do your kid a real diservice by worrying about what they 'need' to know, and then dictating that their time is spent learning that

time is finite, time wasted on learning what all the other 4 year olds know is time that can't be spent learning what they actually want to be learning that will make them a unique member of society

any competitive advantage they'll have in the future will come from them knowing something all the other kids don't know, they'll get almost no advantage from learning the same things every other kid had drilled into them as well

(and that's not even accounting for how much more quickly they'll learn what they're naturally curious about)

Money quote right here: "Time wasted on learning what all the other 4 year olds know is time that can't be spent learning what they actually want to learning that will make them a unique member of society", you sir, are absolutely right. +1
"What should children know" is an overloaded question, and if we are talking about developmentally delayed child, it has a completely different meaning. In that case, there are a certain things a child should know with strong statistical confidence (e.g. 95% of children do this by age X).

Of course viewed in normal school children context, this question has a completely different meaning. Even here the author is confusing knowledge with right kind of environment that produces or fosters it. But a test of knowledge does not test the environment, just the final product of it.

I agree with you - I think when a parent asks "what should my 4 year old know", they are looking for that statistical reference:

"Most kids, by the age of 4 know X, know or are in the process of learning Y and probably don't yet grasp Z. if they already know Z, but don't know X, it's not a big deal, they'll get it shortly."

Clearly "My kid knows X, Y and Z" isn't what the parent is looking for. I don't care what your kid can do, quite probably my kid can do a bunch of stuff yours can't and vice versa, I don't really care that your kid can do X and mine can do Z, I don't think less of your parenting, nor your child that they can't do Z and it's not a big deal to me that yours can do X.

When I ask the question, what I'm really asking is so much more complicated: "Is my kid equipped with enough of the understanding and skills they require to feel at home and confident in the grade they're in, while still learning at an optimal pace for them? Are they keeping up with what's being taught or are they struggling? Are they engaged or disruptive? If they're disruptive, is it because they're struggling to keep up and have disengaged because they've lost hope, or is it because they already understand everything they're being taught and are bored? Are they more/less advanced than the majority of the class, do I need to consider keeping them back a year because they're struggling with a lot of material, do I need to fast-track them ahead a year so they're a better social/educational fit with their peers? Do I need to consider some private tutoring for X, Y or Z because they're struggling or because they've hit the ceiling for their peer group for that subject?"

So when I ask "What should my 4 year old know", what I'm really looking for is some assurance: "Relax, your kid is a perfect fit for the grade she's in, she's an amazing child, she's made friends, she's happy, she's engaged, she participates, she's got the confidence to speak, she listens well to instruction and to her peers, she understands and retains information well - she's on par with the rest of her class, a bit ahead in X, a bit behind in Y, but nothing that you need to spend any time worrying about. Just concentrate on having fun with her and enjoying her childhood, she's doing fine."

As a parent of a 3 1/2 year old, this was a great read. Development in early childhood is so rapid, I still feel like a new parent. Here's the two things I'd add:

- How to fall down and pick yourself back up without crying too hard.

- How to laugh at yourself good-naturedly when you make a mistake, and try again until you get it right.

These are really valuable - only cry when it's necessary. Cry because it hurts and you feel an emotional need to cry, don't do it because you think it gets you more attention, that'll wear out in a hurry. (Also: Don't make trouble or drama where there is none.) - Definitely don't take the yourself too seriously. There's enough to be serious about in the world already, without polluting it further with too much of yours. - Don't give up just because you make a mistake or failed once... or 999 times. We wouldn't have anything we know in this world if scientists and inventors gave up on every failure, most famously: The light bulb. If you think something can be done and the result is worth the effort, stick at it until you get the result you're looking for. That's how we make progress.
Should we start them on Haskell or Lisp?
Get them ready for the real world... PHP and Java + Enterprise Patterns should be required reading for EVERY four year old.

Please start with the "Gang of Four"; perhaps the title will trick them into thinking it's about a gang of four year olds?

I sometimes ask new parents if they'll choose English or C as the first foreign language.

So far nobody has opted for C.

I'd say basic logic should come first. Then counting in binary, etc.
How to self-reflect, and think about how they act. "Don't do to other what you wouldn't do yourself" kind thing. This would come a long way to keep some kids out of trouble.

Not sure if this is really achievable though.

Sadly, this isn't realistic. There are cognitive development milestones that must be reached through natural physical development.

See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1411647... for just one reference.

Similar to jonathanwallace's point, I would argue that such self reflection, as a component of "executive function," isn't fully achievable or fully developed for most individuals until they're in their 20s [0].

Nevertheless, it's crucial that we support the development of cognitive skills related to self-reflection, inhibitory control, and so on even in children whose prefrontal cortexes may not be physically developed enough to consistently make appropriate judgements.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_function#Adulthood

Even in the blog post from 2010 kindly submitted here, the author notes that this writing is from "many years ago," with a link to the old version,[1] so I wonder what she thinks now several years later, as her child has grown up some more.

[1] http://www.magicalchildhood.com/articles/4yo.htm

This is important stuff - I did first grade twice, because I was a "slow starter" in a lot of ways. My mother had serious concerns about how well I'd do at school, for the first few years (even after being left back -- it didn't help that I was incredibly shy and didn't really want to interact with the teacher), but once I started reading I read voraciously, and got better & better at school as time went on, so by the end of HS and then in university I was at the top of my class generally.

There's still a pile of stuff I wish I'd learned much, much earlier -- like "how to get good at something" (besides just muddling your way into it), and that the basics of skill acquisition apply to social skills as well... so now I'm explicitly teaching these things to my kids, along with a healthy dose of fun and silliness along the way.

It was all going well, until:

> musical instruments (real ones and multicultural ones)

Er, what exactly is a multicultural musical instrument? Like a bongo drum? One of them 'ethnic' doodads?

Just encourage your kids to read and they'll educate themselves. No extra work required! Once they get the bug they can read about history (in a better way than school ever could), science and adventure to their heart's content.

I think books, lego and a gameboy (grant me some concessions, we didn't leave Windows 95 until about 2004) were all I needed to get through childhood.

The unconditional love thing... Times +Inf...

I'm a pretty result-driven person myself, but can't think of anything better to teach my kids than to know they're loved whatever they do.

In my opinion that's a bit creepy. A child who is loved unconditionally can never understand unconditional love.

You can never see what's always there, such as the air we breathe. You can only understand it by logic and that's not until your teenage years, at the earliest. How could a toddler possibly understand love?

Edit: To clarity, of course you should love your children, unconditionally. But to teach them what unconditional love is, at an early age? Really?

Unconditional love is such a weird concept to me. I definitely wouldn't continue loving my child if she killed my other child on purpose. (Out of jealousy perhaps)
> That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books.

This startup - Versame - is building a wearable device for children and parents to measure this. Check it out: http://versame.com/

I often wonder if kids need to go to school 5 or 6 days a week, and spend 8 -9 hours there. I like the idea of kids being with other kids, but do they really need to spend most of that time sitting on a bench, listening to classes?
Kids spending more time in a chair is a terrible, awful, no good very bad idea.
I'm not sure what is best for a 4 year old, but they certainly aren't helped by smug and self-righteous posts by parents that claim to have better answers than other smug and self-righteous parents.
Love
Why are people incapable of using gender-neutral pronouns? Using "they" makes for a much easier read than alternating "he" and "she".
Or at least pick one and stick with it. Traditionally it would be "she".

It wasn't important in this case, but my brain kept flipping back to the previous item to make sure I hadn't made a mistake in reading. Ordinarily it is pretty important to the narrative.

Because it's only talking about one child, not multiple