Too Much of a Good Thing

by Dr. Kyle Pruett

The recent poll of what parents think matters most about the early years of their children's lives contained a few shockers for those of us in the family development business. The poll, conducted by Zero to Three, and introduced to the public by the President and Mrs. Clinton at a recent White House Conference, contains this surprise: 87 percent of all parents (racial and economic minorities included) think that there is no such thing as too much stimulation in a child's life. Parents seem to reason that if a little reading and flashcard time is good for a child's mind, then a lot is a lot better. The same principle of "more has got to be better" is applied to karate, violin lessons, or Sunday School. Wrong. Parents need to be alerted that overdoing stimulation is a problem in everyday life; it winds up having exactly the opposite of the desired effect: kids are turned off, not on, by too much of a good thing.

Be aware of limits

Before the age of ten, the young brain is especially busy pruning and shaping itself, making connections to set up wondrously complex learning patterns, emotional and memory schemes, and problem-solving strategies that can last a lifetime. The more success the child has influencing and interacting with attentive learning and nurturing environments, the more his (and his brain's) appetite for a new experience and learning grows, making all those neuronal connections even richer -- up to a point. All kids start out with this natural curiosity and motivation for learning. To have that curiosity and motivation for learning appreciated, and understood by others, is amazingly comforting and exhilarating for kids. But we all have our limits, especially as children. It is vital to a child's healthy and robust sense of self that her parents understand where and what her particular limits are for absorbing new information and experience (Recall how many new and exciting things you feel like taking on at the end of your day).

How will you know when they've had enough?

Think for a moment about how you know when your kids have had it. How do you know? You learn the shape and boundaries of your own child's tolerances, not from some handbook, but through regular daily interactions with your particular child. You learn through the dialogue between your child's emotions and yours, knowing your child's satisfactions and frustrations, watching the expression on his face, the tone of her voice, just as she is busy watching yours. You probably already know what it is like to be "in synch" or "at one" with your child. It is this remarkably connectedness that forms the bedrock of your child's self-regard -- not praise, although that, too, can help. It feels quite powerful to be connected at this place of synchrony because your child knows at a deep level that you "get it" about her, that you know what makes her tick.

And here is the paradox: when parents or teachers routinely ignore the message coming from the child that he has really had enough stimulation for the time being, they run the risk of the child's concluding he is not getting through to these grown-ups. He then feels powerless to get understood in this ongoing conversation. The result very often is that he no longer learns, he just quits.

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