By Idzie Desmarais This post was originally published on Patreon in January of 2018. If you become a supporter for $1 a month you gain access to a brand new, patron exclusive post every month, along with the entire back catalog of Patreon posts. A few of them eventually make it onto […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Converging evidence shows a major shift toward independence around age four. My earliest clear memories of events I experienced, which are not simply memories of stories told to me about my childhood, are from when I was 4 years old. I know, because those memories are clearly situated […]
If they ask, tell them the truth. www.shutterstock.com Ah yes, December. Christmas trees and decorations are popping up in shop windows, the weather is warming up, and the school holiday period looms. This may be exciting or distressing, depending on your relationship with your family. Not everyone celebrates Christmas. But, […]
As we look to improve the reading outcomes of our young children, more music education in our preschools and primary schools could be the answer. www.shutterstock.com Neuroscience has found a clear relationship between music and language acquisition. Put simply, learning music in the early years of schooling can help children […]
Possum Magic again, are you for real kid?! from www.shutterstock.com We often hear about the benefits of reading storybooks at bedtime for promoting vocabulary, early literacy skills, and a good relationship with your child. But the experts haven’t been in your home, and your child requests the same book every single night, sometimes […]
Moral growth is promoted when we allow little ones to act on their instincts. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn commons An all-too-common belief in our culture —often held implicitly rather than explicitly — is that babies come into the world as either asocial (the “blank slate” belief) or antisocial (the “original sin” […]
If allowed to help, toddlers become great work partners later in childhood. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Little toddler helping in kitchen with washing dishes We, in the United States and many other Western nations, more often think of children as sources of extra work than as sources […]
Encouraging children to make and use a range of maps helps develop their spatial skills, great if they want to read an x-ray, design a building or put up flat-pack furniture later in life. jeshoots.com/Unsplash When we read maps, pack the car for holidays, assemble flat-pack furniture or cut cake […]
Failure is a gift disguised as a bad experience. from www.shutterstock.com In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to protect children from failure in order to safeguard their fragile self-esteem. This seems logical – failure is unpleasant. It tends to make you look bad, you have negative feelings of disappointment […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Monitoring, structuring, and protecting reduce children’s activity and health. Most of my writing about children’s free play has been about the mental health benefits (e.g. here), but in this essay I’m concerned with the physical health benefits. Children are designed, by nature, to play often in physically vigorous ways. That […]