What gets me is when I see the effects on even the young school agers. I have Kindergarteners and transitional Kindergarteners in my program, and the ones who are really struggling in school have really poor social emotional skills. I have two that came from play based preschools and two from academic.
One from the academic preschool was sent home last week for biting
and has spent this week in the behavioral resource room. Here with me, he needs just as much social support as a young 3 year old but there is no way he is getting that in Kindergarten. I personally believe that the huge benefit to early childhood "education" is the social skills that young children learn. Convincing parents of that is tough . . . At least until their Kindergartener gets sent home for biting.
