What to do if your 4-year-old hates school?

Last week, a fellow Executive Director was telling me about his passion for making learning fun on the first night of a wonderful event called the Gathering of Leaders organized by New Profit, a growth capital philanthropy. Check the links to learn more about it.

This parent, Kwame, then told me that his son, who is four, already hates school. 

I wanted to leap into his address book, find the name and address for the preschool’s director, drive there and shake them. 

Because if a young child hates school it is clearly an adult’s fault. 

After five years advocating for more resources towards the untapped talents of our nation’s young men as the Executive Director of All Star Code, it drives me crazy that even parents who are devoted to education don’t immediately connect the dots when their sons disengage from school. While our focus is preparing high school males of color for careers in computing, early learning is rife with issues.

Unfortunately, far too many young boys are being alienated from learning by well-meaning educators, and, even, well-meaning parents, as a result of an increasing emphasis on traditional academics and the resulting strict classroom behavior in our nation’s early grades. If the growing struggles of boys (all boys) in education is news to you I encourage you to read Peg Tyre’s THE TROUBLE WITH BOYS (here’s a summary) and also this. For a partial counter-argument read this THE WEEK piece here. (The author acknowledges that black boys face unfair challenges in school but that white boys are still advantaged as compared to white girls.) 

As it happens, the parent I was speaking to was black, which means his 4-year-old son is statistically far more likely to be disciplined by his preschool teachers, labeled as a problem and even expelled. The so- called school-to-prison pipeline starts shockingly earlier than people can imagine. 

Still, I do believe that generally speaking, our schools, especially at young ages, are failing boys, all boys, by pushing academics too early. Boys simply develop later than girls in crucial academic areas like fine motor skills and ability to concentrate and sit still. In practice, this means that my five-year-old son (who is quite brilliant thank you very much) couldn’t draw a circle until perhaps six months ago. Last year, my husband was looking through the cute Valentine’s Day cards our son and his classmates had exchanged and cried out:

“Is this Bridget’s handwriting???” 

Yes, while our son couldn’t even close his fingers tightly enough to grip a standard pencil properly, this wonderful young lady, who is actually younger than my son, was already working on her spelling. 

Some parents might have called in the tutor. Or at the very least, started a regimen of five minutes of circle-drawing a night. We tried to encourage him to play more with play-dough (it strengthens the hand muscles). He didn’t. We let it go. 

Luckily, our school believes firmly in the value of play and made sure that Calvin had no idea that drawing letters was a goal of any kind. And that’s because he was four. 

I told Kwame some of the research I just shared above about boys vs. girls at young ages and he immediately agreed with what I was talking about. 

He explained that his son’s preschool required students to ‘sign-in’ at the beginning of each day by writing down their name. Apparently the girls could but his son couldn’t. 

As you can now see, this is a mistake. 

“And how do you react to this?” I asked. 

“Well,” said Kwame, who is a strong believer in education, “I’m trying to help him learn to write his name.” 

And that is a mistake, too. Here’s why. 

Kwame’s son’s school has needlessly made him feel like he is a failure. But now, his father is (unknowingly) reinforcing that by encouraging Kwame to practice something that his hands are simply not ready for. So now, this poor boy now feels like he is a disappointment to his Dad. Thus this kid feels terrible about himself and no good will come of that. 

It’s all about confidence. I truly believe that for boys in particular, if the ego is gone, he won’t perform, not to his capabilities. To be sure, confidence is also really important for girls, but I believe that if a girl is encouraged to pursue something, she will give it a try. But boys… if they don’t like it, they won’t do it. And if you force them to do it, they’ll do the bare minimum. 

By the way, this is definitely true for my husband. 

Yes, this somewhat archaic theory is one that I’ve developed as a woman married to a man, as the mother of a boy and as the leader of an organization focused on boys (we develop young men of color for careers in computing). 

“Don’t buy into the school’s misguided philosophy.” I told Kwame. “Tell your son that the school is wrong. Tell him that he is going to write perfect letters next year or the year after that. Tell him that your are so proud of him for having tried to write his name for so long. At sign-in time have him draw a line and tell him that that’s his name.” 

Of course, I also suggested Kwame speak to school administrators and his teacher about the research on boys’ development and ask them firmly not to pressure his son to write or perform other academic tasks so early. More broadly, any school worth its salt should be aghast at a school-hating 4-year-old because cultivating a love of school is basically the entire point of preschool. 

Too academic preschools are bad for boys and girls. Creativity, play, social and emotional learning is far more important for both sexes at early ages. However, girls are far more able to thrive within an academic environment. 

Long story short, if your young son hates school: 1) tell him that he’s amazing and make sure he believes it; 2) arm yourself with research and talk to the administration about dialing back the academics; 3) switch schools is an obvious recommendation but by pre-K it’s kind of too little too late so… 4) keep your son’s needs in mind as you learn about his kindergarten options. 

Christina Lewis Halpern is the Founder and Executive Director of All Star Code, a leading tech inclusion organization based in New York City that empowers young men to create new futures through technology. (www.allstarcode.org)