At the right age and at the right time.

Pre-schools overloading toddlers

 

Experts scoff at personality development, communication courses

 

 

Parents who send their children to pre-schools beware. With more and more pre-schools in the city offering activities like personality development classes, enhancement of communication skills and even courses in Vedic maths, psychiatrists warn that exposing children to them at an early age might throttle their creativity. It could even turn them off learning.

City psychiatrists believe development courses and pressure from parents to involve their kids in various activities leave children without a childhood.

"Knowledge and personality development classes are all good, but best when done at the right age and at the right time. But for a child, who may not even know the meaning of competition, so many classes and activities in order to become more intelligent and quick would just make the child bored and averse to studies," Anjali Chhabria, psychiatrist with Mind Temple, said.

According to psychiatrist Rajendra Barve, development-oriented courses stymie the growth of children. "When the child is growing, development should not be the focus. Forcing development courses on a child will result in one-sided growth. The child should be allowed to grow naturally and not through artificial stimulation," he said.

However, parents feel such activities are necessary for preparing their child to deal with a competitive world. Many pre-schools have introduced activities like grooming, specialisation in spoken English and martial arts only because of demand from parents.

"We have a range of activities from sports to dance and now parents also expect us to start courses for Vedic maths," Kusum Kanwar, head of operations for Kangaroo Kids Limited, said. Some pre-schools like Kangaroo Kids even have after-school courses for children.

"I want my child to be good in everything and imbibe leadership qualities and confidence at an early age, so that it stays with him forever," said Sangeeta Usgaonkar, mother of a four-year-old who goes to the Kidzee pre-school in Andheri.

"At a drawing class, the child will be told to paint the sun yellow and he or she will follow," said Maya Kirpalani, consulting psychologist at Jaslok hospital.

 

"There goes original thinking and creativity down the drain," said Kirpalani.

Psychiatrist YA Machiswala says as long as pre-schools operate in a scientific manner and have a child psychologist on board, it should not be a problem. "Parents should enrol their children in a school where there are qualified teachers and also the pre-schools should not eat into more than two hours of their time," he said.