Individual Stressors
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Today’s young children are probably unaware of the arguments over how they should be tested, measured, categorized, and labeled. But they develop a self-image and are influenced by interactions with their families, immediate environments, peer groups, and teachers. They are also not oblivious to the hardships and challenges they may encounter as a result of socioeconomic conditions, family dynamics, and the pressure to be successful in school.
In the Hurried Child (2001), psychologist David Elkind asserts that today’s child is overscheduled, overtested, overfed, and overmarketed; pressured to grow up too soon; and denied the pleasures of being a child. Elkind describes this child as the “Superkid, with precocious powers, even as an infant” (p. xvi), a victim of “overwhelming stress borne of rapid, overwhelming social change and constantly rising expectations” (p. 3).
Early childhood classrooms and care settings offer opportunities for teachers to create environments without these kinds of pressuresplaces where children can be children, with the teacher’s image of each one constructed from interactions with that child. Having reasonable developmentally appropriate expectations without imposing or projecting adult issues onto children is a significant priority for preschool teachers. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to practical suggestions about how this is to be done.
