The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups
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A bold challenge to the conventional wisdom about early childhood, with a pragmatic program to encourage parents and teachers to rethink how and where young children learn best by taking the child’s eye view of the learning environment
Parents of young children today are embattled: Pick the “wrong” preschool and your child won’t get into the “right” college. But our fears are misplaced, according to Yale early childhood expert Erika Christakis. Children are powerful and inventive; and the tools to reimagine their learning environment are right in front of our eyes.
Children are hardwired to learn in any setting, but they don’t get the support they need when “learning” is defined by strict lessons and dodgy metrics that devalue children’s intelligence while placing unfit requirements on their developing brains. We have confused schooling with learning, and we have altered the very habitat young children occupy. The race for successful outcomes has blinded us to how young children actually process the world, acquire skills, and grow, says Christakis, who powerfully defends the preschool years as a life stage of inherent value and not merely as preparation for a demanding or uncertain future.
In her path-breaking book, Christakis explores what it’s like to be a young child in America today, in a world designed by and for adults. With school-testing mandates run amok, playfulness squeezed, and young children increasingly pathologized for old-fashioned behaviors like daydreaming and clumsiness, it’s easy to miss what’s important about the crucial years of three to six, and the kind of guidance preschoolers really need. Christakis provides a forensic and far-reaching analysis of today’s whole system of early learning, exploring pedagogy, history, science, policy, and politics. She also offers a wealth of proven strategies about what to do to reimagine the learning environment to suit the child’s real, but often invisible, needs. The ideas range from accommodating children’s sense of time, to decluttering classrooms, to learning how to better observe and listen as children express themselves in pictures and words.
With her strong foundation in the study of child development and early education and her own in-the-trenches classroom experience, Christakis peels back the mystery of early childhood, revealing a place that’s rich with possibility. Her message is energizing and reassuring: Parents have more power (and more knowledge) than they think they do, and young children are inherently creative and will flourish, if we can learn new ways to support them and restore their vital learning habitat.
12 reviews for The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups
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Erica –
Excellent resource for parents and teachers
As a parent and teacher, I highly recommend this book. I got this originally for insight on raising my kid and creating an environment that supports learning (human connection and play are more important than test prep and work sheets, unsurprisingly), but it also had an impact on me as a teacher. Though I teach high school, it’s inspired me to try out some things in the classroom that might help ignite students’ interest in actually learning vs. getting good grades.This book is pretty common sense, but still worth the read. The author is pretty realistic, and aside from the fact that after turning an outdoor frog (or was it a toad?) into a pet for a while, she released it back into the wild, she has some good ideas and advice.
John Carroll –
Being little is important and so is this book
Erika Christakis writes with passion, scholarship, heart and humor. The Importance of Being Little offers insights about how young kids think and learn and offers ideas on how we can vastly improve pre-school. Christakis is a fierce advocate for PLAY and through the research she sites, shows how young kids think and learn. Her writing style is completely appealing, full of stories that hold our interest. This book is a great read for early childhood educators ( bless their souls! ), young parents and grandparents and all who care about the next generation. I hope The Importance of Being Little is the first of many from an original and well informed thinker. I look forward to the next scholarly book, or even a novel, by this author…she is that good!
Ciani –
Interesting read
This is a great book for parents wondering how to choose a preschool program that will encourage their children to play and think. It’s thought-provoking material even if you don’t agree with all of it.The one thing I disagreed with is the casual distrust and dislike of technology that appears throughout the book. The author stops short of claiming that technology is harmful, but mostly seems to think that it’s sad compared to how she thinks a real childhood should look. There’s a confusing passage on how letting your kids play videogames at night will make their childhood inauthentic, whatever that means. Another part talks about how ingenious it was for kids to throw water balloons spiked with urine at others, and on the next page we’re told how far the American childhood has declined now that kids are playing with iPad apps. (One wonders if the quiet child who just wanted to be left alone rather than be hit with a water balloon would also feel nostalgic about that part of a traditional childhood.) As someone who hated even being hit with snowballs, but LOVED technology for as long as I can remember, I found the author’s attitude to show a lack of understanding for children whose ideal childhood differs from her own. There’s a lot of advice throughout about listening to what children want because they know best, but apparently that advice doesn’t extend to trusting that children are interested in technology for a reason. Parents should let their kids take more risks outdoors, because bone fractures are not such a big deal – but with technology we should hold back because we haven’t studied it enough yet. For those of us who will always remember the magic of discovering and learning how to operate every single function of the first electronic alarm clock, remote, or handheld game we got our hands on as kids, it’s disheartening to listen to someone who doesn’t understand that some kids find technology not just useful but also inspiring.
J. S. Lewkowski –
The Importance of Being Little in order to be A Contributing Big
After working in the field of Occupational Therapy for forty years, the last twenty involving from – “being very little” persons, to – “being very big little” persons.My love and interest is in the processes observable in the field of “developmental delay”.Captured in this label or scope, are areas of sensory, motor, perpetual, auditory-language and emotional processing, with differences of various extremes. The common denominator appeared to be that these people are extremely intelligent, intuitive, motivated, cooperative and with unusual initiatives.The common interruption and violation……… the education systems, the educationists, the politics and stupidity of people who don’t understand children and their development until death.In her, book , Erika Christakis has presented her experiences, insights and tremendous knowledge and understanding, as well as the simple solutions possible to help little people grow to be fulfilled,self-fufilling and contributing adults.Jennifer LewkowskiOccupational Therapist – ResultsOTDip.OT : Jerusalem. Advanced Dip.OT: Neurosciences :Johannesburg. South Africa.Tel: +27 11 887 5945Email:jenneot@gmail.com
Judy New –
Great read
Great book. Fast delivery
Angela –
Absolutely brilliant!
As an early childhood educator, I found Christakis’ insights to be invaluable. Her research is solid and vast.
Martha H. Pieper, PhD –
Taking the Drudgery Out of Preschool
As the author of a parenting book that takes the same approach toward preschoolers (Smart Love: The Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Regulating, and Enjoying Your Child) I was thrilled with this book. The book presents a point of view that we desperately need to hear more of, namely letting children be children and giving them all of childhood to grow up in. Preschool should be about igniting children’s curiosity and love of learning and school and not about pressuring them and making them resistant and dull. Christakis offers both practical and theoretical support for this position. A must read!Smart Love: The Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Regulating and Enjoying Your Child
constantina fotiou –
still in the process of reading this one. So far, I love it!
Cliente Amazon –
Fast delivery. Everything OK. Nothing special to say, because they deliver books in mint condition, fast and easy as expected.
Steven C –
This is a book I recommend that you read after you have put the kids to sleep and you don’t feel like watching Netflix or Game of Thrones. Unplug your TV, make your favorite cup of sleep time tea and enjoy the incredible wisdom contain in the pages of this masterpiece. Read it once and read it twice. As a matter of fact I recommend reading it three times, even if you’re on vacation take this book with you. When your kids are old enough read this to them along with Dr. Seuss and various kiddie classics. It’s really that good. I’m not kidding you at all.
Frances Dyer –
I was fortunate to get a prepublication copy of this book. This is a book to read at a sitting, it is so engaging and delightful, but it is also to be savoured and thought about. I share the author’s enthusiasm for small children and having taught this age group for many years have experienced some of the same joys and dilemmas, and it is refreshing to read a book that is embedded in experience and is so well-researched. Christakis is clear-thinking, full of common sense, and above all practical and hopeful, and I hope this book is widely read, not just by teachers and parents, but by anyone who has dealings with small children. The early years are vital, and Christakis makes the point, often in witty and amusing ways, that it is up to us all to allow children to develop and flourish intellectually and emotionally at their own pace and in a sympathetic environment.
Carole –
Livre usagé de très bonne qualité.