What are the appropriate learning content and stages for young children to strike a balance in personal development?

The consulting psychologist, Ms. Lee Li Li had recently appeared on NTV 7 (Live) Talk Show: Living Delight on Friday, 15 December 2017, aired at 2.30 pm. During the talk show, she had shared her thoughts and experience on the topics of “What are the appropriate learning content and stages for young children to strike a balance in personal development?”

Q1: When do children start to have the ability to learn? When is the best time for them to learn?

Many parents worry their children will have difficulty to keep up with school lessons. Thus, they choose to send their children to school at a very young age. Generally, parents send their children to preschool at the ages of 5 or 6 years old. While there're also parents who decide to send their children to preschool even earlier at the age between 2-4 years old.

According to the Malaysia education system, the official age to enroll in preschool is from 4 to 6 years old, and those centres accepting younger children are considered as nursery centre. Moreover, the time spent at nursery centre for these children should not be too long, the advisable duration is between 3 to 4 hours per day. The learning content provided by nursery centre generally consists of ‘games’, instead of academic knowledge. Children’s development needs including sense of security, curiosity, exploration and interaction, all can be fulfilled through play. Meanwhile, their sense of identity and belongingness can be developed when their questions are being valued and answered by the teacher; and their thinking ability can be enhanced through play as well. As they’re interacting with other students during class, it can also help to develop their social skills.

Infant between ages of 0-6 months old are not suitable to be sent to nursery centre, as parents will be the most important teacher to their children at this stage. From child psychology’s perspective, parents’ company and care are essential for the children’s growth as compared to nursery centre. For children at this tender age, they need to feel secure and gain self-confidence. Both of these mainly derived from parents’ company and interaction with the children. After the children gained both self-confidence and sense of security, then the children may start to have academic learning.

Q2: How to evaluate children’s readiness for school/learning?

When children are at the ages of 7-12 months old, they’re filled with curiosity; and new experiences should be given to them in order to stimulate their five senses. When the children reach 1 years old, parents have to start to focus on their emotional and social development, as it’s connected to their personality development. Some parents may notice that their child has slower learning ability as compared to others; in such, parents are suggested to seek help from professional child psychologist or practitioners to conduct a learning assessment, which helps to understand their child’s learning ability, emotional and physical development better.

Q3: What are the effects of sending the child to school at an early stage?

Due to some reasons such as busy with work and worry about the difficulty to keep up with the school lessons, most of the parents send their child to preschool at the age of 4 years old. In this case, the child’s social ability may be significantly affected if the parent focused solely on the child’s academic development and overlooked their personality development. Therefore, parents who are thinking to send their children to school at an early stage, there’re two main points should be included in their consideration:
1. What are the learning contents for the children?
2. Does the teaching syllabus of nursery centre/preschool meet the children’s psychological development needs?

Q4: What are the preparation needed when parent send their children to school?

As the child develops a stable personality and certain learning abilities, this means that he/she is ready for school. At the beginning, some of the school avoidance behaviors, such as crying can be observed during initial period of starting school. At this point, if too much compromising behaviors given from parents, the sense of independence of the child will be affected. Conversely, parent’s encouragements to the child can help to develop the sense of independence, as well as the awareness of being a student.

Q5: Is it good to enroll your child in writing/interest class at an early stage?

The emotional, social and personality development of a child should be the main concern of the parents. If these interest class are conducive to the related development of a child, then parents are suggested to arrange the classes for children with appropriate consideration. However, the child should not overspend their time in classes, as they still need parents’ company.

Q6: Is it okay if my child does not enroll for preschool?

The social development of a child whose aged between 0-4 years old is generally related to his/her family. Nevertheless, when the child reaches 4 years old and above, he/she will need to expand their social circle; while preschool can act as a small community, to help them develop social skills further. Hence, preschool will be an integral part of the child’s psychological development.