What's ailing boys

(and it's none too good for girls, either)

The National Center for Health Statistics report is getting plenty of national press: nearly one in five parents of boys were concerned enough about their son's emotional or behavior problems that they called in professional help.
Enviromental pollution, epidemics of autism....I'm with Newsweek's Peg Tyre on this one:

Instead of unstructured free play, parents now schedule their kids' time from dawn till dusk (and sometimes beyond.) By age 4, an ever-increasing number of children are enrolled in preschool. There, instead of learning to get along with other kids, hold a crayon and play Duck, Duck, Goose, children barely out of diapers are asked to fill out work sheets, learn computation or study Mandarin. The drumbeat for early academics gets even louder when they enter "real" school. Veteran teachers will tell you that first graders are now routinely expected to master a curriculum that, only 15 years ago, would have been considered appropriate for second, even third graders. The way we teach children has changed, too. In many communities, elementary schools have become test-prep factories—where standardized testing begins in kindergarten and "teaching to the test" is considered a virtue. At the same time, recess is being pushed aside in order to provide extra time for reading and math drills. So is history and opportunities for hands-on activities—like science labs and art. Active play is increasingly frowned on—some schools have even banned recess and tag.

Recess at our neighborhood elementary school? 15 minutes, twice a day. And the first homework came home from kindergarten last week.

I know of parents who have pulled their sons from school, rather than give them behaviorial drugs. I know of parents who have chosen to homeschool, certain that their sons would be diagnosed with ADHD if they were sent to school.

What I wonder is this: at exactly what point, are we as parents going to draw the line? We're making children miserable and ill--ask any third grade teacher about MCAS week--even drugging them, and we're proving what? That having money means you're better at filling in bubbles? That business in America really does run everything?

These are our kids. We are their parents. They depend on us to protect them, yet somehow we're letting ourselves be pushed around by people who puport to know more about education than we do. Often they know about as much about education as they do about children. Exactly nothing.
Kindergarteners don't need to know how to read, and in many cases aren't developmentally ready for it. Little kids need to run around. History class, field trips, science labs aren't luxuries, but 21st century necessities (and sometimes, sanity breaks).

Don't be pushed around. Do what's right for your kids.