It is undeniable, many parents tend to try to introduce letters early, before their children enter school age. Starting from 3 to 5 years, accompanied by pressure for the child to follow what the parents say. And often the effort made is not always through the stages that the child likes. As a result, not the achievements obtained but the child’s psychiatric development becomes disrupted.
In large cities, the symptoms described above are quite rife. Such a reality provokes anxiety from observers of children’s psychiatric development. For the short term, efforts to introduce words or letters early to children, admittedly can indeed show encouraging results. The child can have his own achievements. Children read faster, compared to children who have never been introduced to words or letters, before entering school.
But in the long run, such a tendency does not necessarily show positive symptoms. Especially if the attempt at its introduction, accompanied by emphasis. The child is forced to follow the will of the parents. When he sees the child reluctant, parents will scold him and be a little forced to want to continue learning. Usually such efforts are often used, during the process of recognizing letters or words. Of course, if the condition is like that, it is not impossible that there will be further consequences that are concerning.
What’s worse, in an effort to mature children, many parents use the technique of cramming various knowledge. Though what a child needs is a thinking stimulation technique. Unfortunately, many parents actually feel proud if the child becomes a figure who has a strong record. For example, accustom children to memorize the names of cities, provinces, names of heroes, and so on. What parents give often does not carry any meaning to the child. It is even a burden for him, rather than having more value as expected by parents.
Not only that, the child becomes less trained to take his own initiative, aka the child is not creative. And children who are too dictated, will become a lame figure in their ability to solve a problem. Furthermore, the impact on the child will be clearly visible. At some stage the child becomes uninitiated or poor in ideas or less able to develop his reasoning.
Actually, there are many things to realize, reading skills are not difficult things for every normal child to have. That is, reading lessons given by parents during preschool, as well as those given when the child is already in school, are not much different. If at the beginning of school, children cannot read is normal and natural. Entering the second year or second grade, a normal child can already read. Then the right way to introduce children’s reading skills at an early age, like what?
Familiar with the child’s world
Introduce reading skills to children, not by means of pressure, coercion or violence. It will be more meaningful for children, if the effort is done by familiarizing with the world around them. The exploration of knowledge that is forcibly thrust at them, is tantamount to cutting off the attachment of the child from his world, so that the child’s opportunity to understand the surrounding world becomes limited.
The demand to complete tasks with a strict training schedule, is not the right way for a child who is at pre-school age. Children of this age need more experience. They also need the opportunity to pursue their world, without being burdened by concepts that are still unfamiliar to them.
Give children the opportunity to learn on their own
The best way to develop a child’s intelligence is to give him the opportunity to learn on his own. Let him ask questions, of his own free will and based on the perceived situation. A child’s curiosity about something, usually very large. Everything he sees and feels, will be asked to the people closest to him. For example: Mommy, why do car tires have to be round? Or why should the living person eat? And so on.
Sometimes parents feel overwhelmed by their little one’s questions. Give them the freedom to express everything and let them experiment to get to know their world better. Usually children express with physical activities, such as running, jumping and various other forms of play. Approach the child and ask him how he feels at that moment. Invite the child to express his feelings. In this way, the child indirectly learns to express his feelings, whether he is sad because he was pinched by his playmates, or is happy because he has a new toy and so on.
Let children freely express themselves without restrictions
The child’s world is the world of play. That is, play activities for children are indeed more interesting than other activities. So it is not surprising that they protest or reluctant when invited to practice reading or writing. He will not be interested in activities that demand sincerity. On the contrary, children prefer activities that can express their feelings. For example, doodling or drawing or doing something as he pleases.
So if the playtime is directed at the interests of the school, the sweet period of playtime is taken away from his life. As a result, the development of the child’s personality in the future, it is not impossible to bring interference. The tendency of parents to spur children to master certain skills, often cannot be avoided. This symptom appears because there are several factors that influence it. For example, more and more married couples are educated. The higher the level of knowledge, causing them to desire their children to have certain skills from an early age that can make them excel when they grow up.
However, as a parent, he should not only see the goodness of his efforts to introduce reading skills only with his own glasses, without seeing the possible consequences if the process of the stages given turns out to be inappropriate for the child. After all, a child has his own world, which cannot be forced to follow the will of parents. So let them express and express themselves. Hopefully.
Author: P. Budi Winarto, S.Pd. Teacher of SMP Pendowo Ngablak, Magelang Regency.