Especially for Parents

News and Commentary by Sharon Secor
August 2005

Why Can’t We Just Let Kids Be Kids?

In 1837, Friedrich Froebel began his own school based upon what were then thought to be radical ideas. Froebel called his school kindergarten, and operated it with a vision of children that is beginning to seem just as radical today as it did then, when it was actually outlawed. Today, those parents who support that vision of children as children and attempt to assert their fast fading paternal rights to see to it that they remain so are often portrayed negatively, combining one or more of the following catch phrases: ignorant, right wing, extremist, Christian fundamentalist.

One aspect of the radical concept that Froebels’s kindergarten put into practice, one that eventually spread throughout the world, was that children are not miniature adults. Until this shift in thought, in most parts of the world, once a child was self-sufficient enough to complete rudimentary self-care tasks, such as getting dressed and eating, they entered the adult world of work. This is recorded in the histories, public records, and literature of the times. The works of art from that period of time that portray children clearly demonstrate this perspective, with children looking just like tiny, serious adults, often lacking even the proportional differences, such as head size and body size ratio, to be found between adults and children.

Part of Froebel’s radical concept of child education was that childhood itself served an important developmental purpose, and the process of early education should take that into account, using play and activities in addition to academic learning to gradually expand a child’s understanding of the world. Here in the United States, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opened one of the first Froebel inspired kindergartens in 1861, in Boston. By the 1920’s this model had spread throughout the United States, and was the way most of us entered the realm of public education.

However, times have changed. It seems that we’ve sacrificed childhood on the altar of social and political agendas, with a dogged insistence on refusing to allow even the youngest of school aged children to inhabit a child’s world, one untainted by adult concepts of sexuality. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, as recent controversies demonstrate, there seems to be a trend towards schools refusing to acknowledge a parent’s natural right to preserve the childhood of even their very youngest children.

Like father Mark Fisher, who publicly objected to his 12-year-old daughter being asked via a school questionnaire about how often she had oral sex, father David Parker has entered the realm of controversy by insisting that “his son's public school…provide parental notification before discussing homosexuality with the 6-year-old,” according to an August 11, 2005, column by Wendy McElroy.

Similar to the way in which the Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, school district that Fisher’s daughter attended “asserted their right to gather such information without his consent,” as written by McElroy in her June 23, 2005, column, the principal of the Lexington, Massachusetts, school that Parker’s son attends asserted the schools right to include the topic in the kindergarten classroom, stating that the Massachusetts law that requires parents to be notified of the discussion of matters related to sexuality does not apply to the discussion of “gay-headed families,” according to McElroy’s August 11, 2005, column.

“I don't want the school to determine the timing and manner when this stuff is brought up. I want him to play on the swing set and make mud pies. I don't want him thinking about same-sex unions in kindergarten,” said Parker, explaining his position in a May 10, 2005, interview with Bill O’Reilly of FOX.

In other words, he wants his kid to be a kid. And, contrary to the popular stereotype, McElroy reports that Parker has a PhD and a very close friend that is a homosexual.

The controversy began with a book that was sent home with the 6-year-old, titled Who’s In A Family, by Robert Skutch. The book depicted a variety of family constructs, including homosexual couples. There are numerous books of this nature, created especially for very young children finding their way into classrooms and school libraries throughout the nation.

One recent set, written by Linda De Haan and Stern Nijland, King and King, which was joined by its sequel this year, King and King and Family, uses traditional fairy tale imagery to tell its story. In the first, it becomes time for the prince to marry and although his mother, the queen, invites many princesses for his inspection, the young prince does not see a single one that captures his heart. Then, one princess comes with her brother and the prince falls in love with him. The two are married. The second book focuses on their honeymoon travel, and ends with the child that awaits them upon their arrival home and the creation of their family.

It seems to me that if the point were just to teach children about the existence of alternative family structures for the purpose of making the children coming from those families feel more comfortable, to reduce bullying and other negative behavior, and to inform the other children of these differences in family composition, then there are more age appropriate ways to do so. Why even bring the sexual or intimate aspect into it for children of that age?

Why not just leave it at the names or titles of the adults in the household? After all, many single mothers share a household with another single mother, as having a roommate is a good way to reduce expenses. There’s no need to be overly specific in that age group. Anyway, it is non-specific tolerance of difference that children of that age should learn - that it is wrong to bully or ostracize, period.

In an August 15, 2005, column, Phyllis Schlafly raised an interesting point. Writing about the happenings at this year’s convention of the largest U.S. teacher’s union, the National Education Association, Schlafly pointed out that the NEA passed a “proposal calling on the NEA to "develop a comprehensive strategy" to deal with the attacks on gay curricula, policies and practices by what the NEA calls "extremist groups" (that's the NEA's term for parents).”

In addition, the NEA passed several resolutions, including matters as diverse as “a call to boycott Wal-Mart, statehood for the District of Columbia, affirmative action, opposition to private accounts in Social Security, opposition to capital punishment, gun control, "single-payer health care" (i.e., government medicine), and endorsement of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights,” according to Schlafly.

They did not, however, pass any resolutions regarding “the need for improvement in the teaching of phonics or basic math,” wrote Schlafly. A shame, considering the consistently pathetic academic performance of all too many students in today’s public schools.

And, that is the bottom line point of the matter. Not only are adult concepts of sexuality, often without parental knowledge and sometimes over parental objections, being pushed upon children at younger and younger ages in the schools, robbing them of their developmentally important childhood, but also the schools are consistently failing to meet their fundamental purpose - educating children in academic subjects. Too many children graduate from school knowing how to put a condom on a banana, but are unable to read the package it came in or figure out the cost per condom in a box that contains a dozen of them.

Friedrich Froebel’s implementation of the radical idea of letting kids be kids changed the tone of early education throughout the world. However, the wisdom he brought to public schools is fading fast. The NEA has made their proposals and resolutions for the year. Perhaps parents should get a little radical and make their own - propose that their kids should be both academically educated and allowed to be kids and resolve to keep their kids out of public schools that refuse to do so.