6 ms·

It's hard to know what the right thing to do, but young kids have an immense advantage that they'll quickly lose: the ability to learn really fast. A couple of

by rand_r 10y ago

It's hard to know what the right thing to do, but young kids have an immense advantage that they'll quickly lose: the ability to learn really fast. A couple of examples: If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. A child can easily become fluent in two languages if they're immersed from a young age. Learning a second language once you're past 20 is hard. It would be shame to waste potential.

zaroth 10y ago
I think the key is critically examining the modern claim that doing anything less than 3 activities and 2 foreign languages is "wasted potential". Maybe to spend a childhood so focused on pursuit and less on the journey is the waste?
- nine_k 10y ago
  Studying language is a pursuit. Learning a Language is a journey! My little daughter does not study Spanish or Japanese, but she keeps learning interesting bits of these, just because it's fun to know. She'll have easier time studying should she decide to.
codegeek 10y ago
You make some valid points but there is only so many things you can do with a kid. How do you know they will become the next Pele? Sure you can send them to soccer at age 3 but then what if they could become the next Frank Sinatra ? Oh, fine lets get them enrolled in music. See the pattern ? By the time they have 5-6 activities that they are forced into, you don't necessarily know what they actually want and perhaps they don't want any of it. At what point do you stop ? That is the dilemma of fast parenting.
- ourmandave 10y ago
  We enrolled my daughter in pee-wee soccer, probably more for something-to-do-on-weekends than anything. She'd spend the whole game picking flowers. I still teared up when she got her participant badge at the end.
  - dmourati 10y ago
    You know what, this is a-ok. Everyone got what they wanted.
falcolas 10y ago
> If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. And if your child hates soccer? Their ability will only really matter if they want to turn it into a career. > A child can easily become fluent in two languages if they're immersed from a young age. Which, if not used, is lost to the years. My mother could speak Serbian when she was young, because she was exposed to it. She can't anymore; hasn't been able to for years. I learned German when I was young, but don't recall a single thing now. Again, unless you want to live in a country where that language is prevalent, the long term value is rather low. > It would be shame to waste potential. IMO, it would be a greater shame to shape the child in your image for them, instead of into the person they want to become. In my experience, social skills, a good sense of self, and a broad educational background have served me better in adulthood than my years spent swimming ever did. If anything, my parents focus on me being a swimmer (which provided a social venue for them) held me back from developing more skills I could have used once I became an adult.
kirse 10y ago
Learning a second language once you're past 20 is hard. I don't buy this, at least in terms of kids "learn faster". Adults have the benefit of both motivation and 20 (or more) years of communication experience, same as how a senior programmer with 20 years under their belt wouldn't find it hard to add another ML-dialect to their tool-belt vs a high-school grad who is learning their first functional language. If anything is "hard" about learning a language as an adult it's the time and priority shift required for immersion. Now soccer, yea I'll give you that one. Or Piano, or whatever other skill where the compound benefit of repeated fine-motor skill practice often pays off.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  Are you really disputing the overwhelming evidence that second-language acquisition is faster and reaches higher levels of fluency for younger learners? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition#Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition#Ag... Researchers fight over the age of the transition (roughly 12) and how sharp it is (~3 years), but the effect is undeniably large.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Are you really disputing the overwhelming evidence that second-language acquisition is faster and reaches higher levels of fluency for younger learners? Yes, I am disputing it. So? Sorry, but I don't like the "research spoken, everybody shut up" tone. Especially since research is not that conclusive at all. From the very lemma you've posted: "This strict version has since been rejected for second-language acquisition, as some adult learners have been observed who reach native-like levels of pronunciation and general fluency. However, in general, adult learners of a second-language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that children display, despite often progressing faster in the initial stages. This has led to speculation that age is indirectly related to other, more central factors that affect language learning." Or, from another lemma: B. Harley (1986)[24] compared attainment of French learners in early and late immersion programs. She reports that after 1000 exposure hours, late learners had better control of French verb systems and syntax. However, comparing early immersion students (average age 6.917 years) with age-matched native speakers identified common problem areas, including third person plurals and polite ‘vous’ forms. This suggests grammar (in L1 or L2) is generally acquired later, possibly because it requires abstract cognition and reasoning. Also showing different strengths in different areas of learning between kids and adults: They found that native-English speakers who learned German as adults were disadvantaged on certain grammatical tasks but performed at near-native levels on lexical tasks. These findings are consistent with work by Hahne (2001, cited in Scherag et al., 2004).
jlj 10y ago
> If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. Why would they need to catch up to anyone? I'd rather have my child love the game or hobby than cram every waking moment into some activity. The ability to hear yourself think and actively listen to others is more important imho. There is so much noise in US culture telling kids who they should measure up to. As a parent I feel I need to be the counter balance to those messages. There are also plenty of examples of professional sports players who started in their teens. "Google <sports league> late start."
- djloche 10y ago
  >Why would they need to catch up to anyone? Sometimes a game isn't fun when you're matched with and against people far above your skill level. You feel like you bring the whole team down, and you feel like you cannot win no matter how much training and effort you put in. be it playing soccer in high school or videogames like overwatch...
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    There aren't other teams?
- ourmandave 10y ago
  I always felt bad for the guy whose picked last. (Not saying it was me, I'm just saying never let them see you cry.) Anyway, the flip side is someone whose always team captain, runs circles around everyone, and goes on to uni to find out they're just okay when they're competing against 10X more people.
- hrktb 10y ago
  There's activities you can become pro later in life and other you can't. For instance for a pro musician, I remember piano can be started at 7 or 8, violin for instance is already late at 5. Of course not every kid wants or needs to be a pro violin player. But if you don't make them give it a serious try in the first place , you'll never know if they'd want to be one or not.
coldtea 10y ago
>If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. Oh, the humanity. They would then grow on to be adults who can't play soccer well, and that's like a career suicide. /s Young kids also have another immense advantage that they'll quickly lose: being kids. Burdening with tons of BS activities and responsibilities will steal time from their childhood and playing, and wont even let them discover the activities and things they do like for themselves.
david-given 10y ago
> If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. I went to a school that had two hours of compulsory sport five days a week. The end result of this was that it taught me to loathe and avoid sport, exercise and most forms of competition, which has resulted in health and social issues I've been having to cope with for the rest of my life.
- funnyfacts365 10y ago
  You beeing lazy had nothing to do with it, it was all the daily 2 hours of sports fault...
myth_drannon 10y ago
I recently listened to a Freakonomics podcast called "how to become great at anything". They actually contradict what you are saying. With the right training you can become really good, of course natural talent adds an edge... They took some middle aged psychologist who dreamed about signing liked Adel, she was horrible! The she got a teacher that gave her singing lessons. After one year she was singing like Adel. She released singles that gained some traction as well. The important point was how you learn. Good teachers and techniques and not only 10,000 hours.

by rand_r 10y ago

zaroth 10y ago

I think the key is critically examining the modern claim that doing anything less than 3 activities and 2 foreign languages is "wasted potential". Maybe to spend a childhood so focused on pursuit and less on the journey is the waste?

nine_k 10y ago
Studying language is a pursuit. Learning a Language is a journey! My little daughter does not study Spanish or Japanese, but she keeps learning interesting bits of these, just because it's fun to know. She'll have easier time studying should she decide to.

codegeek 10y ago

You make some valid points but there is only so many things you can do with a kid. How do you know they will become the next Pele? Sure you can send them to soccer at age 3 but then what if they could become the next Frank Sinatra ? Oh, fine lets get them enrolled in music. See the pattern ? By the time they have 5-6 activities that they are forced into, you don't necessarily know what they actually want and perhaps they don't want any of it. At what point do you stop ? That is the dilemma of fast parenting.

ourmandave 10y ago
We enrolled my daughter in pee-wee soccer, probably more for something-to-do-on-weekends than anything. She'd spend the whole game picking flowers. I still teared up when she got her participant badge at the end.
- dmourati 10y ago
  You know what, this is a-ok. Everyone got what they wanted.

falcolas 10y ago

> If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. And if your child hates soccer? Their ability will only really matter if they want to turn it into a career. > A child can easily become fluent in two languages if they're immersed from a young age. Which, if not used, is lost to the years. My mother could speak Serbian when she was young, because she was exposed to it. She can't anymore; hasn't been able to for years. I learned German when I was young, but don't recall a single thing now. Again, unless you want to live in a country where that language is prevalent, the long term value is rather low. > It would be shame to waste potential. IMO, it would be a greater shame to shape the child in your image for them, instead of into the person they want to become. In my experience, social skills, a good sense of self, and a broad educational background have served me better in adulthood than my years spent swimming ever did. If anything, my parents focus on me being a swimmer (which provided a social venue for them) held me back from developing more skills I could have used once I became an adult.

kirse 10y ago

Learning a second language once you're past 20 is hard. I don't buy this, at least in terms of kids "learn faster". Adults have the benefit of both motivation and 20 (or more) years of communication experience, same as how a senior programmer with 20 years under their belt wouldn't find it hard to add another ML-dialect to their tool-belt vs a high-school grad who is learning their first functional language. If anything is "hard" about learning a language as an adult it's the time and priority shift required for immersion. Now soccer, yea I'll give you that one. Or Piano, or whatever other skill where the compound benefit of repeated fine-motor skill practice often pays off.

jessriedel 10y ago
Are you really disputing the overwhelming evidence that second-language acquisition is faster and reaches higher levels of fluency for younger learners? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition#Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition#Ag... Researchers fight over the age of the transition (roughly 12) and how sharp it is (~3 years), but the effect is undeniably large.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Are you really disputing the overwhelming evidence that second-language acquisition is faster and reaches higher levels of fluency for younger learners? Yes, I am disputing it. So? Sorry, but I don't like the "research spoken, everybody shut up" tone. Especially since research is not that conclusive at all. From the very lemma you've posted: "This strict version has since been rejected for second-language acquisition, as some adult learners have been observed who reach native-like levels of pronunciation and general fluency. However, in general, adult learners of a second-language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that children display, despite often progressing faster in the initial stages. This has led to speculation that age is indirectly related to other, more central factors that affect language learning." Or, from another lemma: B. Harley (1986)[24] compared attainment of French learners in early and late immersion programs. She reports that after 1000 exposure hours, late learners had better control of French verb systems and syntax. However, comparing early immersion students (average age 6.917 years) with age-matched native speakers identified common problem areas, including third person plurals and polite ‘vous’ forms. This suggests grammar (in L1 or L2) is generally acquired later, possibly because it requires abstract cognition and reasoning. Also showing different strengths in different areas of learning between kids and adults: They found that native-English speakers who learned German as adults were disadvantaged on certain grammatical tasks but performed at near-native levels on lexical tasks. These findings are consistent with work by Hahne (2001, cited in Scherag et al., 2004).

jlj 10y ago

> If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. Why would they need to catch up to anyone? I'd rather have my child love the game or hobby than cram every waking moment into some activity. The ability to hear yourself think and actively listen to others is more important imho. There is so much noise in US culture telling kids who they should measure up to. As a parent I feel I need to be the counter balance to those messages. There are also plenty of examples of professional sports players who started in their teens. "Google <sports league> late start."

djloche 10y ago
>Why would they need to catch up to anyone? Sometimes a game isn't fun when you're matched with and against people far above your skill level. You feel like you bring the whole team down, and you feel like you cannot win no matter how much training and effort you put in. be it playing soccer in high school or videogames like overwatch...
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  There aren't other teams?
ourmandave 10y ago
I always felt bad for the guy whose picked last. (Not saying it was me, I'm just saying never let them see you cry.) Anyway, the flip side is someone whose always team captain, runs circles around everyone, and goes on to uni to find out they're just okay when they're competing against 10X more people.
hrktb 10y ago
There's activities you can become pro later in life and other you can't. For instance for a pro musician, I remember piano can be started at 7 or 8, violin for instance is already late at 5. Of course not every kid wants or needs to be a pro violin player. But if you don't make them give it a serious try in the first place , you'll never know if they'd want to be one or not.

coldtea 10y ago

>If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. Oh, the humanity. They would then grow on to be adults who can't play soccer well, and that's like a career suicide. /s Young kids also have another immense advantage that they'll quickly lose: being kids. Burdening with tons of BS activities and responsibilities will steal time from their childhood and playing, and wont even let them discover the activities and things they do like for themselves.

david-given 10y ago

> If you don't start playing soccer really young, you will never be able to catch up to someone who did. I went to a school that had two hours of compulsory sport five days a week. The end result of this was that it taught me to loathe and avoid sport, exercise and most forms of competition, which has resulted in health and social issues I've been having to cope with for the rest of my life.

funnyfacts365 10y ago
You beeing lazy had nothing to do with it, it was all the daily 2 hours of sports fault...

myth_drannon 10y ago

I recently listened to a Freakonomics podcast called "how to become great at anything". They actually contradict what you are saying. With the right training you can become really good, of course natural talent adds an edge... They took some middle aged psychologist who dreamed about signing liked Adel, she was horrible! The she got a teacher that gave her singing lessons. After one year she was singing like Adel. She released singles that gained some traction as well. The important point was how you learn. Good teachers and techniques and not only 10,000 hours.