We Respect and Honor Childhood

““Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child.”  

—Tom Stoppard

Childhood is valuable. It is a singular time in all our lives when our work is play, when silliness and wisdom live side by side, and when the possibilities are endless—as are the wonders, the questions, the mysteries, the explorations. 

Every human being deserves to experience this precious season of life fully. Yet many children are growing up too fast and being exposed to aspects of the adult world long before they’re ready. In his landmark book The Hurried Child, David Elkind puts it this way: “It is important to see childhood as a stage of life, not just an anteroom to life. Hurrying children into adulthood violates the sanctity of life by giving one period priority over another. But if we really value human life, we will value each period equally and give unto each stage of life what is appropriate to that stage.”

Many child development experts agree that childhood needs to be protected these days. Most screen content, even some that is supposedly created for children, is not anywhere near developmentally appropriate. A stressful school culture pervades the American educational system, with an emphasis on testing and a narrow idea of success. Even the most well-meaning parents—in an effort to teach their children about the world—sometimes share more information than children are prepared to take in.

Early development specialist Marcia Axness calls this phenomenon Too Much Too Soon (TMTS), and she warns that it is reaching epidemic proportions. “I think we do it out of genuinely good intentions—to prepare our children for what they’ll face in the ‘real world,’” Axness writes in a guest blog post called “Sheltering Childhood Nurtures Your Child,” on DrGreene.com. “But a child’s brain and psyche are very different from those of an adult, and treating children as miniature adults is counterproductive to our goals of raising healthy, informed, engaged citizens.”

In fact, treating children as children is the best way to prepare them for adulthood, according to experts. Here’s how child psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell puts it: “It is a mistake to believe that by teaching a child about the dangers of the adult world at age 6 you will better equip that child to deal with those dangers when she grows up,” Hallowell writes in an article titled “Protecting Childhood” for Parents League Review. “The best way to equip a child to solve the complex problems she will encounter as an adult is to give her a protected time in childhood to develop the muscles of imagination, the beams and rafters of optimism and hope, and the bricks and mortar of confidence that will enable her to tackle those problems later on.”

Sheltering children from the adult world, according to child development experts, does not mean shielding them from all risk or preventing them from having responsibilities. “Our job as adults should be to build a protective wall around childhood,” writes Hallowell, “so children can be safe while they do what kids ought to do: play, get into mischief, dream, believe all kinds of stories and make up some too, while also learning about making beds, taking out trash, brushing teeth, studying hard, and doing all that kind of stuff.”

To counter TMTS, experts agree that limiting screen time is crucial. New research shows that exposure to technology may actually be changing the way children think, affecting everything from attention to decision-making to memory. “Because their brains are still developing and malleable, frequent exposure by so-called digital natives to technology is actually wiring the brain in ways very different than in previous generations,” explains psychologist Jim Taylor, who wrote about the topic in an article called “How Technology Is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus,” in Psychology Today. “The bottom line,” he writes, “is that too much screen time and not enough other activities, such as reading, playing games, and good old unstructured and imaginative play, will result in your children having their brains wired in ways that may make them less, not more, prepared to thrive in this crazy new world of technology.”

Perhaps most regrettable are the destructive effects that technology can have on two essential elements of childhood: wonder and curiosity. In his 1982 book, The Disappearance of Childhood, social critic Neil Postman discusses how television has disturbed the delicate balance between the world of the adult and the world of the child. The growth of technology and rise of the Internet in the years since Postman wrote his groundbreaking book can only have compounded these effects. 

“To a certain extent curiosity comes naturally to the young, but its development depends upon a growing awareness of the power of well-ordered questions to expose secrets,” Postman writes.” The world of the known and the not yet known is bridged by wonderment. But wonderment happens largely in a situation where the child’s world is separate from the adult world, where children must seek entry, through their questions, into the adult world. As media merge the two worlds, as the tension created by secrets to be unraveled is diminished, the calculus of wonderment changes. Curiosity is replaced by cynicism or, even worse, arrogance. We are left with children who rely not on authoritative adults but on news from nowhere. We are left with children who are given answers to questions they never asked. We are left, in short, without children.”

Even in homes where media, screen time, and other popular culture is limited, children can experience Too Much Too Soon simply by being overexposed to adult life in general, often inadvertently. Marcia Axness recommends that parents avoid having adult conversations within earshot of their children. “I’m not talking about buffering your child from the normal vagaries of childhood — the daily frustrations inherent in being a child, the disappointments with parental restrictions, the spats with friends, the famous skinned knees. These are all essential for developing resilience,” Axness writes. “I’m talking about sheltering your child from the vagaries of adulthood, one of which is simply a flood of too much information: family politics, marital discord, political intrigue, intriguing reality shows, community gossip, and the like.”

Axness has a simple and concrete suggestion for parents wishing to protect their children from Too Much Too Soon: a bedtime routine. “This is one of the many reasons for including an early bedtime in your child’s daily rhythm—to preserve enough adult-only time during which you can engage in data-rich discussions to your mind’s content!”

Based on this understanding of the dangers of Too Much Too Soon, Slate School has given great care and thought to creating an environment that honors children for who they are and where they are on their human journey. Slate School has made very intentional choices: to use little to no technology, to give children lots of time to play; and to nurture wonder and curiosity every day.

At Slate School, our book collection is carefully curated to ensure that children don’t experience Too Much Too Soon. Our book policy is based on respect, kindness, and commonality. We don’t introduce the injustices and unkindnesses in the world until the children have encountered those things. We believe in the value of saying to children, “Not yet.” Childhood fully experienced moves slowly. It offers children the chance to discover the world in their own time, little by little, when they are developmentally ready to process it. 

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously said, “Childhood has its own way of seeing, thinking, and feeling. And nothing is more foolish than to try to substitute ours for theirs.” 

As parents and educators, let’s give our children the chance to experience their childhood one slow and wonder-full step at a time.