There is a Middle Path in Parenting

There is a middle path in parenting, nurturing, caring, and interest in who your child is.
Recently Karen Nemeth, EdM brought to my attention via twitter that parents are paying big money for tutors for their pre kindergartners, to help them ace the test to get into gifted level kindergarten in NYC. I realize the overcrowded population levels in that Metro Island brings out a competitor attitude, but tutors for K entrance placement is extreme. It speaks more about distortion of parental values than anything I have heard in recent years. I understand that many parents get over-zealous , trying to push their "Little Me"s into ever greater achievements. The stats show at least 20% of birth to 5 yr parents have gone way beyond encouraging their child into gathering feathers for their own caps.
On the other extreme, about 50% of birth to 5 Yr parents all not even reading to their children, no books in the home suitable for children at all. Some of these parents are very high tech people that think books at outdated. Others of these parents are not confident as educating their child and hope that when their children hit Kindergarten they will get all they need at school. Others are too preoccupied with working for basic necessities, or their own personal dramas to notice. Some just don't understand how important they are to their early child.

I suggest there is a middle path that perhaps 30% of parents are successfully navigating. They are happy to take some time , reading with their child (even just 20 minutes a day). They know their child develops most of his or her lifelong learning skills capacity by age 3yrs. They know that everyday experiences shared and talked about with their little one, open up and shape their child's view of life, love and learning. They actually find that time spent in reading together, and other activities is a great enjoyable dynamic in their own lives.
I'm asking those who have not known about this middle path to take a look. If you are not confident about how to share a children's picture book with your early child look at amazon.com listing of my book Teddy Bear's Favorite Pictures, with step-by-step guidelines to do just that, as well as beautiful art work by Delia Bowman Wach.
If you would like a copy of my free guidelines "Enjoy Books With Children" email me at info@LiteracyForTykes.com .
If you are over-fixated on your own golden child, relax and send a little of those dollars to www.LiteracyForTykes.com to benefit the underprivileged children to keep from being at-risk-to fail.
The main thing is enjoy the wonderful opportunity you have to share whatever time you have each day with the most important persons in your life, your early children.