College Planning in Early Childhood - April 1 Episode 021

Transcript

Episode: Your 6-Year-Old Is Already Behind (College Edition)
Guest: Mimi Engel, PhD
Host: Chris Bell

Opening

Chris Bell:
If your kindergartner isn’t already demonstrating leadership initiative, it’s time to intervene for the sake of the college application.

I’m not trying to alarm you. I’m just pointing out the parental obligation here for families who are serious about college planning for their five- or six-year-old.

Here’s one easy place to start: Is your child intellectually differentiating themselves from the other children during class presentations or recitals?

Also, are you lovingly but firmly sculpting their intellectual spike development?

At the bare minimum, by the end of kindergarten, there should have been active familial molding of their long-term academic theme.

Look, by their sixth birthday, students should already be well on their way to a coherent, focused intellectual narrative. College admissions officers love a good narrative.

Tonight, we have a true expert on early childhood education, and we’ll hear from her the exact milestones that kindergartners need to hit for successful college admissions.

For kindergartners who are leaning toward pursuing language arts and the humanities: in kindergarten, your child is not just able to differentiate fiction from nonfiction, but can really write strong fiction and strong nonfiction.

And for young students specializing in STEM, my goodness, those kids should be doing some long division. Six years old. Make sure they can sit still at a desk for at least an hour, use a pen, hold it properly, and work through some old-school long division.

The point is, if your child is still developmentally indistinguishable from other students on the playground and doesn’t yet have a decent start on their personal brand positioning, I truly don’t know what to tell you other than it’s time to get going right now.

Yeah, sorry. Just kidding. This is the April Fools’ Day episode, and five- and six-year-olds, they don’t need any of that.

Announcer

Announcer:
It’s The College Talk Show. Tonight’s theme: college planning in early childhood, with special guest Mimi Engel.

And now, here’s your host, Chris Bell.

Transition

Chris Bell:
So, Mimi was playing along, and she was very good at it.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the language didn’t feel completely impossible, did it? That’s worth examining.

So while we have her here, I thought we really could take a few minutes to actually talk about early childhood for real.

Let me introduce her properly.

Mimi Engel, PhD, is a professor and Sesquicentennial Faculty Scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder in the School of Education. Her work focuses on how early educational experiences shape children’s development. She knows what actually supports long-term success, and it’s not quantum computing in first grade.

Dr. Engel, thank you for playing along tonight, and thank you for being here.

Mimi Engel:
My pleasure, Chris.

Interview

Chris Bell:
Oh, I’m so happy to have you.

So when we’re talking about this for real, when parents worry that their child is behind at six years old, what are they usually misunderstanding about development?

Mimi Engel:
I think most—first, I want to note that sometimes there is cause for worry, and one should have their child evaluated. There are critical windows in early childhood.

And it is often the case, especially in contexts where there’s quite a bit of privilege, that parents can worry themselves to death.

So when we think about a six-year-old, I think we need to hold a number of things. One is that child development is very uneven. So your child might be very, very physically agile and not reading, and that’s normal.

Chris Bell:
What actually helps build this long-term academic success? I even feel guilty even asking this, but anyway, what is it that helps people as they go through young childhood, early childhood, and beyond?

Mimi Engel:
A lot of this holds as we grow older, and what we need shifts a little bit.

But what kids need early in schooling is stability, consistent positive relationships, positive feedback.

My younger kiddo was a wiggly kid. Sitting still was hard for him. And the teachers who could positively redirect were way more successful with him. He was a happier kid. And the teachers who noticed that he was paying attention while wiggling saw him best of all.

So it’s those repeated positive interactions. It’s consistency in relationships with adults.

And I know it feels like we should be talking about all this academic stuff, and the fact is those things matter. And often we’re already doing them.

Meaning, you probably have books in your house, and your kids probably just might pick them up and look at them and read them. And you probably have a wide selection of music—and movies too, why not?

All those different kinds of stimuli are really important for developing brains. And they’re mostly already happening.

It’s kind of why humans have evolved and continued to survive as long as they have.

Chris Bell:
I love this idea that we’re probably already helping our kids.

People are watching this episode for a reason. Even though it’s an April Fools’ Day episode, they tuned in because they might be feeling anxious about their child’s future.

Where is a healthier place to focus that energy? Do you have any advice for parents?

Mimi Engel:
What you want to do is actually not be anxious with them. They feel it. They pick it up.

So if we think about child development, part of our job with our kids—and I loved it when I learned this—is that how we regulate helps them regulate.

Chris Bell:
Wow.

Mimi Engel:
So, meaning, if I’m freaking out and trying to get my kid to go to bed, for example, he’s not going to settle.

And so being calm—that’s another one. Again, both kids actually, neither of my children ever wanted to sleep until they were old enough not to require support for sleeping.

But what I learned is that my calm body, finding a way to calm my body, helped them calm their body.

So I think that it’s, again, I know I’m talking about a lot of social-emotional stuff, and I think that we have to lay that groundwork for our kids to be successful.

So the basics, right? Just feeding them good food, and knowing that they should enjoy festive junk food and treats. Both of those, right?

Making sure they sleep. And well, we can’t make them sleep, but we can create an environment that supports their sleep.

And then as they go along in school, remembering that it’s not each moment that matters. It’s not the quiz. It’s not checking Infinite Campus three times a day. It’s supporting them as they become more autonomous.

And does it feel like it’s going to happen when you have a wiggly twelve-year-old? It might not, but it almost always does, and we have to trust that.

Chris Bell:
Wow. I can picture that being a thing where people are like, “I am going to figure out how to get my six-year-old to get into college.” That is not necessarily a calm stance in this world.

Mimi Engel:
The evidence on parenting, I mean, it’s both heartening and disheartening, is that there are a ton of ways to do it right. There’s no one way.

And we never do it perfect.

And doing it wrong really means you’re neglecting your child’s basic needs, or you’re really controlling their behavior in a way that’s not allowing them to explore and develop.

So trusting, in some ways, your child as a guide—I’m not saying they should be in charge. I’m saying paying attention, not always to the exact words, but to what they seem to be asking for, is huge.

So just attention and meeting them where they’re at, because it’s a lot more fun to read when you’re ready to learn to read than when you’re trying and it’s not quite gelling.

Chris Bell:
All right, Mimi, I want to have some fun now.

Mimi Engel:
Yeah.

Chris Bell:
I want to ask you to pretend: what would be an outlandish statement that someone might say related to college planning for youngsters? Give me something that is truly over the top.

Mimi Engel:
I’m on it.

I mean, I would say—and now we’re going to, because one of my areas of expertise is kindergarten—yes, we’re going to go to kindergarten.

Ideally, in kindergarten, your child is not just able to differentiate fiction from nonfiction, but can really write strong fiction and strong nonfiction.

Chris Bell:
I laughed. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Mimi Engel:
And really, so you want to see that. You want to see paragraphs. You want to see punctuation. This notion of invented spelling—there is spelling. So why would we invent spelling?

Chris Bell:
Oh, that’s so good.

Do you want to do another one? Do you have any other—do you want to—I don’t know what it would be.

Mimi Engel:
I do, and I’m going to pull one that actually comes from my own research.

So I have work that suggests—studies I’ve published—that math in kindergarten can be way too basic for many kids. Okay, like 97 or 98 percent of kids. This was actually in 1998, so I don’t know what it looks like today.

And so one could look at that and extrapolate from it that, my goodness, those kids should be doing some long division. Six years old. Make sure they can sit still at a desk for at least an hour, use a pen, hold it properly, and work through some old-school long division.

Chris Bell:
I can’t believe you delivered that with a straight face. That was really good. That’s perfect.

And do I have your permission to take you out of context for this April Fools’ episode?

Mimi Engel:
As long as—

Chris Bell:
Okay, thank you. Well, we’re done. That was it. Thank you very much.

Let me tell everyone: thank you again to Mimi Engel for amazing input and an amazing episode, both on the fun side and on the real side. Stick around. We’ll be right back.

Sponsor Message

Chris Bell:
This episode is brought to you by Bell College Consulting. Visit BellCollegeConsulting.com to learn more.

Top Tips

Chris Bell:
Even though the idea for this episode was just to make it all a joke, the conversation with Dr. Engel was so good that we ended up with a lot of important tips. And so, as is customary around here, let’s do a rundown of tonight’s Top Tips.

Top Tips. Kind of a summary, but we call it Top Tips.

Number four: child development is uneven.

Number three: what kids need early in schooling is stability, consistent positive relationships, positive feedback.

Number two: parents are probably already doing all the important things for their youngsters.

And the number one tip for helping kindergartners prepare for college is: support your kids as they become more autonomous.

Closing

Chris Bell:
If you tuned in because you thought I was really going to offer college strategy for first graders, welcome. Subscribe to this channel. If you stick around long enough, you’ll be remarkably well prepared by the time it actually applies.

If you tuned in hoping to be outraged by the title, I’m sorry to interrupt your plans. You’re still welcome to leave dramatically concerned comments. I may even play along with you.

And if you knew what was happening from the beginning, well done. You’ve officially passed Advanced Placement April Fools.

Regardless of how you got here, the reason we all think about this stuff in the first place is simple:

College is Awesome.