Are kids growing up too soon?
One of my favorite things about homeschooling is that my children get to be children. They don’t have to enter the ranks of teens at the age of 8. As you get older, it’s easy to look at today’s ten year olds and think, they act much older than ten year olds did in my day. It’s also easy to dismiss that and think that surely you must be imagining things. But in a recent USA Today article, experts are saying the same thing: 10 IS the new 13.
To me, that’s a scary thought. Corporations encourage the attitude, but really the responsibility for keeping kids kids falls with the parents. I remember years ago there was an episode of Full House where the twins were going away to kindergarten, and the Mom was having a hard time letting go. I was so struck by the quote, “Well, they have to grow up some time”. At five? Are you kidding me?!?
So, what do you think? What, if anything, should parents do to preserve their children’s childhoods? And does it really matter?
