External Standards Take On a Life of Their Own

I took an action last evening that I never expected I would ever take. As the voice of the early childhood profession on a not-for-profit child care and development center board, I recommended to my fellow board members that we do not seek renewal of accreditation. I thank my peers that they spared me the trauma of putting forth the actual motion but I know, the director knows, the other board members, and God knows that it was my words that influenced this center to “let go” of voluntary accreditation.

In my nearly thirty-years working in the early childhood profession, in roles ranging from aide to teacher to home visitor to director to professor to traveling consultant and trainer, I have been a passionate supporter of standards and practices that improve the lives of young children. I was involved as an team member and leader of accreditation review teams in the Missouri Voluntary Accreditation System, which predates the national accreditation, and I enticed, pushed, and prodded the staff of my center and saw the amazing transformation that is possible when the not-for-profit center I directed moved through the process and became accredited.

Many days I feel like a dinosaur. At times I feel like our profession has lost its soul and its joy as we have pursued external standards to judge the worthiness of programs. Philosophically, as a profession we challenge children to learn self-control, to be self-learners, and to internalize behaviors that assist them in cognitive as well as social-emotional discovery. We have believed in mentoring and supporting young children within the context in which they live and learn.

But we do not seem to have the same philosophy when it comes to adults.

In recent years as I have provided workshops in at least half a dozen states, I have heard more and more voices of frustration with external standards, from accreditation to Quality Rating Systems. As I teach early childhood practices that focus on process, on individual children, and that require creativity, self-awareness, and self-confidence on the part of teachers, I struggle to keep the adult-learners’ attention on their children rather than on the standards.

No doubt that some of the focus on the standards versus the children is based on the adults’ misunderstanding of the standards themselves but I am coming to the conclusion that the existence, not the content, of the standards themselves are having a serious side-effect on our profession.

I fear that the standards, the regulations, and all of the documentation that goes along with them are part of the problem. Standards that do not take into account cultural and economic context, standards that are lengthy, many in number, and that focus on minutiae, such as the wiping of the gums of an infant after feeding, sabotage our purpose: loving, caring relationships between adults and children.

And, yet, none of these concerns are the reason that I recommended to the board that we allow accreditation to lapse. I made my recommendation because external standards, in the form of NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) accreditation, do not practice the fundamental value of early childhood practice, that of being developmentally appropriate, individually appropriate, and culturally appropriate. As a small, not-for-profit program, in an economically-challenged Appalachian town, our context makes it nearly impossible to meet the educational degree requirements for teachers. When our accreditation lapses sometime next year, there will no longer be any accredited programs in our community.

I am saddened today because this direct result of rising external standards without regard to local economics and culture, not only threatens the credibility of NAEYC but eliminates a tool that could have helped us to improve the lives of young children and families.

Families on a Sunday

When I am traveling alone I find myself observing children and their families in public places. (I'm not a stalker, honest!) Today I saw the following:

--A father and his toddler were leaving the grocery store. The boy walked with confidence out the door at which time Dad bent his knees while holding the groceries in his right arm and picked up his son in his left arm. I watched as the toddler snuggled into Dad's neck and heard quiet words of love exchanged between them.

--As I returned from the ice machine the elevator opened, a couple walked out, and the door stood open. A 2-year-old girl struggled to get the overnight bag, which was nearly as large as she, out of the elevator. Mom and Dad waited patiently. As the girl wheeled the bag down the hall toward the family's hotel room, I heard her announce, "All the doors are closed, Mom!" Mom smiled through her fatigue.

--A Mom smiled at her baby in the shopping cart. The baby smiled back moving her whole body in joy.

And then I spoke with my wife on the phone this afternoon. She told me of one of the toddlers at church who upon walking out the church door with his mother, turned back toward my wife, the pastor, and shouted: "Bye Mom!" The boy's mother just smiled.

What a good day for children and families today has been.

Well-Parented

Is your child well-parented? I spent some time last weekend with a 9-1/2 month old child who clearly was well-parented. How do I know?

1. He was happy most of the time but expressed a range of emotions.
2. His body was relaxed most of the time but stiffened when his emotions dictated it.
   
3. I watched his parents allow him some latitude in his explorations...and, yet, there were clear limits.
4. He was comfortable with strangers after some initial caution.
5. Both of his parents were involved in his life and they seemed to share the same basic approach to parenting.
6. His parents were watchful and conscious of where he was at all times.
7. He checked back with Mom and Dad from time-to-time.
   
8. His parents at times gave up adult experiences to focus on his needs often sharing this responsibility by taking turns.
9. His parents were happy and self-confident individuals who clearly love one another.
   
10. He has an extended family and friends who support his family.
    

There are many possible reasons (e.g.; mismatched parent and child temperaments, health, special challenges, past experiences) that a child might not fit these characteristics through no fault of his or her parents. Yet, at the risk of over-simplifying, in my years working with young children and families, these characteristics are telling most of the time.

The Children Are Waiting

So, he's done it. As promised, George W. Bush has vetoed the bipartisan children's health care bill passed by both houses of congress. Mr. Bush has decided that we can afford to increase military spending by $22 billion next year, bringing the total cost to $195 billion, but that we cannot afford to spend a total of $7.7 billion next year on children's health coverage.

Now, it is up to congress. Senators and Representatives, will you let this veto stand or will you take the power given you in the Constitution and override this heartless act? The children are waiting.

Whoa! Hands off Fred Rogers!

Jeff Zaslow wrote in a first-person column in the Wall Street Journal this week (July 5, 2007) that:

...The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A's.

"They felt so entitled," he recalls, "and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers." (Find the whole article here.)

I have to say I was a bit miffed for several reasons:

1.) Fred Rogers' work with young children was terribly misrepresented and, unfortunately, he cannot defend himself from the grave.

2.) Fred Rogers NEVER advocated in young children a feeling of entitlement unless by entitlement you mean entitlement to kind, caring, loving adults.

3.) The author of this column is just one more person propagating the idea that being sensitive to children means creating a sense of entitlement. This attitude on the part of many--who don't understand human behavior or child development--implies that the only way to raise responsible children is by continuously "taking them down a notch".

4.) While Mr. Zaslow used Mr. Rogers as a jumping off point for a discussion of the issue of individuals who have a sense of entitlement, he picked a person who advocated responsibility to blame.

5.) Mr. Zaslow , unfortunately, sees a sense of entitlement only in the generation just now coming of age. Personally, I see it in folks of every generation. Perhaps, there has been an increase in this sense of entitlement. Perhaps, not. Either way, scapegoating a generation is at best lazy scholarship and at worst bigotry.

6.) This opinion piece talked about entitlement but was very lightweight in that he didn't talk about what early childhood educators know about parenting styles (e.g.; Baumrind's research) or give the readers any solutions. of which there were many.

So, what does it take to raise children who take responsibility for their actions and yet have a positive sense of self and a strong sense of confidence?

It takes respecting children, providing an environment of unconditional love, kindness, high and yet attainable expectations for behavior, sincerity, and adults who model appropriate behavior. We don't end up with responsible adults who have internalized rules for living by authoritarian parenting or teaching. We also don't get responsible adults through permissive parenting or teaching. Rather, we end up with children who become responsible adults when parenting and teaching styles are neither permissive or authoritarian but authoritative. Authoritative parents and teachers empathize with a child's frustration that caused him or her to hit or bite another child, express that empathy, and still make it crystal clear that no matter how you feel, you cannot put your fist in another child's face because s/he said something irritating.

We need more adults like Fred Rogers. We need more adults who see the value in each individual, who emphasize to children that even when you feel angry, you cannot hurt others, that every member our communities are important for both the work that they do and for who they are.

Blame Mister Rogers? Hardly.

Subjective Well-Being

Joel Spring from Queens College in New York City spoke yesterday afternoon at the AERO Conference. It is his contention, and he provided data to support his case, that people are wealthier now than they were in the Seventies and yet have a lower level of "subjective well-being". So, why do we feel such a need to give our children more and more possessions?

Elevators Trump Disney World

I am "on the road" this month traveling from motel to motel. As I rode the elevator this morning I was reminded of my children's favorite part of the Disney World experience: the elevator in the hotel. I remember the joy that Jessie and especially the younger Isaac got from pressing the buttons that took us to and from our room.

Perhaps, we need to remember that with young children it is often not the expensive, frenetic, and obvious things that get their attention and that they choose to learn from. Just my two cents from somewhere in Pennsylvania...