Yes! Children today are overprotected and given insufficient freedom to exercise their bodies, creativity, curiosity, and minds.

and, as usual, the article doesn't even give a bit of lip service to WHY it might be happening.

Maybe something to do with the kinds of parents that raise their preschoolers to BE disruptive at school? Nah, that would be racist, wouldn't it?

I agree.

Yes again.

At that age children need individual attention and individual application of appropriate discipline. That requires a low ratio of students to teachers. Properly run, a classroom of pre-schoolers can be taught appropriate behavior, response, respect and self-discipline. That is hard to do in a public school environment.

Why? Because how else are they going to keep milking the racism card unless they keep up their postings about "evil racists" while being a racist in the process...

I remember once, yeas ago, the ideal was to be "color blind"... And for a while, it actually happened, at least where I was from...

Except those trying to suck power out of "racism" realized it would kill their power structure... so they keep stirring the pot (or actually, catalyzing it to separate like oil and water) to keep racism alive and well.

Typical pullmonger trick, make someone "poor and opressed" to guilt you into their policies. Makes me ill...

FAIL

yes

"Why is everything always about race?"

Could it be that, when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?

Big government liberals, like Arne Duncan and his boss, the idiot-in-chief, are so invested in creating their utopian society, that they have a very hard time handling the real world, when it intrudes on their fantasies.

So, they fall back on their tried-and-true strategy: screaming "racism", at every turn.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

yes. I believe it. just so you know, I used to run a church's education board. unfortunately, the particular church was all up into art. can we say idolatry?

yep. which is why I am glad you are in our corner. but-required is a charged word....we build communities...on the Gulch we have many young participants. If they have parenting questions maybe they'll ask....but they are individualistic.... they hopefully are letting their little ones bounce hard on tramps and run hard on grass and slide and skin knees, and go to the park ALONE on their bike...that's what we did, right?

Books and grandparents are indeed helpful.

However, I think it's vital for parents to understand not just the physical developmental stages and physical care of children, but their emotional and psychological development, as well. And how many people know the typical age ranges for sitting, crawling, eating solid foods, etc.? Not to mention toilet training! So many people seem to think, for example, that toilet training should begin at age 1.... Or when and how to begin setting limits.

And how many know the warning signs of possible hearing difficulties? Or autism?

I say, forewarned is forearmed!

After all, any good parent wants the best possible start in life for his/her children, right?

It's intended to be. There's no good that comes from boring people or just giving them a fancy show. Our kids grow up wanting to go to church. Eventually they have friends who want them to visit their church and the kids always tell us how much more they get at our church. We pack more love and caring into every minute than a lot of churches generate in a month. BUT I just might be opinionated on the subject.

huh?! there are books...and mentors like grandparents...

that's nice

sounds like fun ;)

Most of the teachers' heads are focused on their pensions and benefits. Some try really hard be get exhausted and worn out from demands coming from all angles. I'm convinced common core will weed out the truly good teachers and we'll be left with mediocrity who's focus is on their pensions and benefits and counting the years til they can retire with a full boat. Parents aren't paying attention for the most part.

Actually our Sunday School starts in the sanctuary, where pledges to the flag, bible and Christ are conducted followed by prayer and announcements and the overall theme for the SS class is given. Following this, we break out for a 30 minute class, segregated by age, true.

That's followed by the preaching service which in our church is MUCH more like a educational class that I had in college.

We follow that with a potluck lunch, before we go home. Since our emphasis is on families and many of our members have larges families, there are kids everywhere.

After lunch some of us go to the rear of the property where we have a range set up and spend some quality family time target shooting. Once a month we have a "shootout" match with ribbons awarded.

Most of our kids that are 4-5 are starting to shoot (small bore or pellet guns) along side mom and dad. However, strollers are not uncommon in the range house which has sound proofing. Parents take turns in there.

Yes KH, it is a long day, but it's a day growing together with people who are educated, trained and well armed citizens.

that's what's great about owning your own business. take your kid to work day. there were several times I even took my toddler niece to work when we still maintained a commercial office. entrepreneurs are good with that. you can even put a toddler to "work"

that's always interesting to me about you stoic catholics making the kiddos sit in the service and then...everyone just leaves and goes home? I generally like the short and sweet, but protestants LOVE their all Sunday morning long thing.