Pressure on today's kids American-Style

I don't talk about it a lot here, but I've spent the last two years of my empty-nesting life doing child care. It's not that I don't have lots to say, but I love and respect the families I work with, so I want to avoid any tendency to do any Nanny Diaries narratives. I did spend 11 years on a school board, always proclaiming Halloween as my favorite holiday because my constituents came to the door. I left that position because it didn't feel like it was about kids anymore. After a few years working with financial aid helping kids afford colllege, I turned to child care because that is the part I like most -- THE KIDS.

But I want to be clear that this post is NOT about the kids I'm working with now. It is an observation about some of the kids I have experienced, and why I worry about so many kids in general (though none specifically). Is that enough of a disclaimer? Hope so. Because I'm starting to feel REALLY old because of my response to the way so many kids/adolescents (post-toddler) pursue life. But my hot button right now is not based on the kids, but on the adults in their lives.

Somewhere along the way, too many adults have stopped wanting things with kids and for kids, but have way upped the expectations OF kids.

I'll start this with concept: increasingly academic preschools, toys designed specifically for learning (Leapfrog and others) and the fact that googling EARLY LEARNING results in 59,400,000 hits.



This is just part of the birth through high school continuum that ends up with SAT Prep courses, summer programs at prestigious and local colleges, early college entry, "as rigorous a curriculum as your high school offers", "the more APs the better" and the fact that googling WHAT COLLEGES WANT results in 233,000,000 hits!

Before I go into my rant, here's the part I want you to consider: are parents more engaged with their children on a personal level? Are adolescents connected to their families in a meaningful way? Does society value well-rounded children? Is all this standardized testing to help children or validate programs?

I have to think all this through too. More later.