The Hurried Child Syndrome: What You Can Do About It

Concern is growing among educators that we’re forcing preschool children to engage in academic tasks that they’re simply not ready for. Increasingly, preschools are demanding that kids do pencil and paper activities to prepare them for grade school. Unfortunately, this rush is creating a new malady – “the hurried child syndrome”.

Warning signs can include stomach aches, headaches, anxiety, depression, learning difficulties, and other symptoms of stress. Fortunately, the cure is well at hand. Here are some guidelines.

• First, don’t heap lots of structured extracurricular activities on your preschooler. Let her engage in informal play during her free time.

• Second, choose a developmental preschool for your youngster. These schools prepare kids for later academic achievement by engaging them in play activities tailored to their developmental level.

• Finally, let your child enjoy her childhood while she can. Childhood is a precious time that is over all too soon.

By letting kids be kids, and not forcing them to function too soon in the academic marketplace, we can help them over come the hurried child syndrome and learn in their own way.

Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. is an award-winning author and speaker with twenty-eight years of teaching experience from the primary through the doctoral level, and over one million copies of his books in print on issues related to learning and human development. He is the author of nine books including Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, In Their Own Way, Awakening Your Child’s Natural Genius, 7 Kinds of Smart, The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the Classroom, and Awakening Genius in the Classroom. His books have been translated into sixteen languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew, Danish, and Russian.