Does your child do tricks? I don’t mean like magic tricks, though that would be cool. I mean did you teach your baby to “read” before he could talk? Maybe your baby speaks three different languages instead of just the one. Bonus points if one is a dead language. Guess you could get really creative and make her do something like memorize the periodic table of elements:
Cute, huh? And smart! No doubt about that!
Here’s my bad mommy confession: my kids don’t do any tricks. I don’t use flash cards to teach them to read when they’re 6 months old, they don’t know the fifty nifty United States by shape, and not one of them knows a word of Hebrew. I am a failure as a homeschooling mom. My two year old knows her ABC’s. That’s about all I’ve got.
Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I’ve become convinced that everybody’s baby but mine is a genius. I see all these precious children whose parents are coaching them in whatever mind-sport (or real sport!) takes their fancy, and I wonder if I’m doing it wrong. Can I possibly be the only parent with absolutely normal, boring infants? I mean, as a homeschooling mom, you’d think I’d have this early learning thing sewn up! Alas, my kids have no amazing feats to perform for awed web surfers.
I think I understand why parents work so hard to unlock the power of their little genius’s mind and show the world who’s going to be running it in 40 years. There’s nothing wrong with playing those kinds of games with your kids. For all I know, there’s a huge advantage in being able to rattle off the periodic table before you’re old enough to hold a beaker. Beats watching Blue’s Clues, I guess.
I know children typically enjoy these kinds of exercises, mainly because they want to please their parents. I’m sure it’s very rare that a two year old just wakes up with the crazy idea that she’d like to be a chemist next year, so she’s going to have to expedite the learning. Hurry and get me those flash cards, dad! Time’s a wastin’!
I’m more in the “let ‘em play” camp. There’s plenty of time for that other stuff. I hope. Because I am far, far too lazy to teach my baby to read.
Bad Homeschool Mommy! is a post from: Get Along Home