Too young to stress

Fun times: Children at the UCSI Child Development Centre learning through play. – LOW LAY PHON/The Star

CHILDREN should not be thrown into the deep end of academics, more so if they have not even developed the muscles needed to grasp a pencil.

Yet, this is what is happening in our country, experts note.

Child psychologist Dr Chiah Wan Yeng said there are already clear signs that our early education system is becoming more academically-driven.

One indication is the mushrooming of academic programmes in the community, she told StarEdu.

According to statistics by the Education Ministry’s Educational Planning and Research Division, there are more than 25,400 preschools in the country, encompassing both government and private institutions.

Chiah noted that early childhood education had been moving from a highly academic rigorous education system to a more wholesome system in the past two decades.

But this was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic when children lost out on two years of learning. And now, we are heading back to an academically-driven system.

“As much as we appreciate the new skills that the pandemic brought us – namely, digitised learning and a higher hygiene awareness – parents and educators are worried about the academic skills that children had been deprived of as learning centres and schools were shuttered.

“In fulfilling society’s expectations of what children should be able to do at a specific age, and in pushing them to catch up with what they had missed, we are putting our young charges at a greater risk than ever before because we have now created a very competitive environment for them to learn in,” said Chiah, who is also an assistant professor and the head of academic affairs at the UCSI Child Development Centre (CDC).

UCSI CDC, she added, advocates “hands-on, minds-on” learning whereby children construct meaning based on their own life experiences.

“Children may dress according to the theme of the day and they learn in purpose-built spaces. We aim to prepare young children for life beyond the classroom,” she said.Early childhood education already covers domains such as physical, cognitive, language and socioemotional areas, which are necessary in those early years.

She, however, said a key area that is often overlooked is the psychological well-being and self-resiliency education for children.

“The misconception that young children are incapable of handling adversities leads to the delay in introducing these learning aspects in early childhood education.

“In fact, the early years are the best time to build a good foundation in emotion regulation, environmental adaptability, and resiliency that could be beneficial for life,” she said.

While she advocates play-based education, Chiah said a right amount of competitiveness is healthy for young children.

“Through competition, children develop the essential social emotional skills like resilience, tenacity and perseverance,” she said, adding that failure is not a bad thing as challenges allow children to improve.

“It is important to note that the true goal of competition is to foster a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset, which causes undesirable outcomes in children, and later on, in adulthood.

“Having children endure a highly competitive environment on a daily basis by placing them in an academic-driven preschool environment can leave a long-term negative impact on their mental health,” she opined.

Chiah said excessive stress is not only destructive to their self-esteem, it also increases the risk of developing anxiety, depression, substance abuse, social withdrawal, sleep disruption, appetite loss and even suicidal tendencies.

In most cases, she added, children who experience chronic stress display long-term adverse mental health symptoms that may not be noticeable until adulthood.

“The first few early years of children’s growing up years are the golden period for them to build a correct outlook and positive attitude towards life,” said Chiah.

Agreeing that preschools are becoming too academic in their focus, Childline Foundation director Datin P.H. Wong said it is now all about workbooks, worksheets and getting As, because the education system demands it.

Pupils entering Year One are already expected to know how to read and do simple calculations, she said.

Pointing to how the layout of Year One and preschool classrooms nowadays comprises desks facing a board with a teacher in front, she said children should instead be learning through play – a practice done in many international schools and developed countries.

“When children learn through play, all their five senses are engaged.

“It is extremely important to put children in an environment where there is interaction, play and communication,” she said, explaining that this is how they learn to build social relationships.

The current overemphasis on academics at the preschool level is also driven by demands from parents who fear their children might not be able to catch up with their peers when they start Year One.

Teachers too, she said, are responsible for unnecessarily burdening our kids and robbing them of their childhood.

Using worksheets is much easier and more convenient for teachers than carrying out a creative curriculum where children do role-play and shared reading, she said.

“In the National Curriculum for Early Childcare and Education (Permata) course, we teach thematic learning, and project-based learning, but very few preschools implement it because it is too much work,” she said.

Wong said it is not healthy for children’s social, mental, emotional development to be exposed to such academic-focused work at a young age because their senses would not receive enough stimulation.

“Giving them homework when they are so young causes stress.

“You should not be pushing your children to do academic work when their fingers are not even ready to write.

“We are now seeing more children going to therapy because of the stress and pressure we heap on them,” she said.

Another worrying effect, said Wong, is that students are leaving school unable to think because their creativity has been suppressed from a young age.

“The cognitive part (of learning) can come in when the child is happy and loves learning.

“When you have a more relaxed environment, children will learn,” she added.

University of Helsinki professor and HEI Schools co-founder Prof Lasse Lipponen said he believes preschool education should look beyond producing “academic geniuses or happy children”.

Instead, a balance should be struck.

“We should think about giving them the tools to form a meaningful life.

“Such a life would entail experiencing a myriad of emotions and challenges to gain life skills,” he said at “The Finland Story: Exporting the Secrets of Happiness and Academic Success via a Dynamic Early Education Model” discussion held at the Finnish Embassy in Kuala Lumpur last month.

Prof Lipponen said there is plenty of research on the importance of the early years of learning in a child’s development.

Which is why in Finland, he said, parents are more worried about whether their children are able to make friends as compared to whether they are doing well academically.

“They understand that the ability to socialise is really important for the development of children,” he added.

Embassy of Finland in Singapore education and science counsellor Anna Korpi, who was also present at the discussion, said early childhood education should be “age-appropriate”.

“Don’t demand too much from children. Let children be children – this is what the Finnish education system does right.

“We often hear educators say that they are ‘child-centric’ but yet many things are still being done from an adult’s perspective,” she said, while stressing that teachers play an important role in a child’s development.

“We should not limit our teachers’ professionalism and cripple their creativity by making them repeat what the authorities say.

“The early years of children should be used to develop the skills needed for them to grow into the kind of people we want them to become.

“Teachers should be knowledgeable when it comes to children’s development and be able to detect any challenges that arise, and communicate these to the parents.

“A child’s academic results matter but we must also pay attention to the child’s psychological development,” she opined.

But all is not lost despite the current emphasis on academics in Malaysian preschools.

Asian parents, known for their “tiger mum” mentality, are moving away from placing importance on cognitive development to something more holistic, fellow panellist SEGi University and Colleges CEO Stella Lau said.

“There is now more emphasis on developing the whole child and the whole brain,” she said, during the Sept 20 discussion.

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THE VIEWS

When playing leads to learning

“My son was in a play-based preschool for a year before we moved him to a Mandarin-speaking kindergarten to prepare him for Chinese primary school (where he is now). He really learnt a lot in that preschool and still talks about it until today. I wish I could have kept him there until he transitioned to primary school but I could not risk having him fall behind when he entered Year One.” – Amanda Yap Yen Ling, 35

“My son has gone for play-based education for three years. He will be starting Year One in a national school next year. I have seen his growth and we are very happy with the school. At the end of the day, it is about the children and the teachers, how much the kids want to learn and how good the teachers are in the class. We are worried about what will happen next year but my wife and I think he will be able to catch up eventually.” – P. Darshan, 37