Teach Your Kids Right!

I feel a bit uneasy when (as a father of a 4-year old) I find myself among some parents, who seem to have their young kids in a race to success, which nowadays starts about one day after birth.
It almost looks like there is a growing competition which child starts crawling, walking, talking, reading, doing advanced calculus, and understands quantum physics first. This crazy idea makes me feel sorry for the children, who have no time to play and just have fun, before they are subjected to the rigors of learning.
The new wave of commercial ads on TV from the company called "Your Baby Can Read", made me very uneasy, as their method seemed to be just memorization. Thankfully, my suspicions were confirmed on the NeurologicaBlog.com (by Steve Novella, a neurologist from Yale University):

In general studies of neurological development and education show that forcing
kids to learn some task before their brains are naturally ready does not have
any advantage. You cannot force the brain to develop quicker or better. In fact,
it seems that children need only a minimally stimulating environment for their
brain development program to unfold as it is destined to.

Read the whole article: Your Baby Can Read - Not!