Forcing preschoolers to write is pointless, dangerous —Prof. Omigbodun, child psychiatrist

IT was common practice for teachers and parents to ask children to write numbers, alphabets or draw at preschool age. While this might seem like a useful learning technique, it does not go down well with the kids and some mothers.

“I experienced it too when my son was less than 3. The teacher said he should by then have started to write figures 1 to 20.  I kept telling the teacher to leave him and allow him to grow at his pace and naturally because I was sure at the appropriate time, he would start to write,”  Mrs Helen Hammed, a mother of three said.

Over time, the teachers started to make Mrs Hammed feel bad and worried although she kept wondering if their expectation from a child that is less than 3 is not too high.  Now, Mrs Hammed’s son is over 5 years and writing well.

It’s important to respect a child’s developmental skills – even if they do not meet your expectations. Some kids take longer than “the norm” to obtain a particular skill—whether that is writing their letters, naming their colours, potty training, sleeping through the night or kicking the pacifier addiction.

Indeed, there is evidence to show that the hands of kids in their early years , which represents children under age five are not simply ready for fine motor skills such as writing, using scissors, zipping, and picking up small objects.

Professor Olayinka Omigbodun, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and Provost College of Medicine, University of Ibadan says forcing children less than three to write is wrong and could hurt them.

She said that by flogging or beating such children to write, parents and teachers are just harming them and invariably such children may end up with poor handwriting given that the muscles in their hands are not well developed.

According to her, “When you start forcing them to write figures 1 to 10, what is the basis of asking a child to write something they don’t even understand? They can do finger painting; they can even do the counting and many other things. You can read to them.

“But to say that you focus on writing when the muscles on their fingers and palms are just developing, I don’t think there’s a time to be forcing them. You don’t find that in societies where they are well advanced, they evaluate their education.

“I remember my daughter when she returned at age 3 from the UK, she could not write but she could spell. They are focused on phonetics. So, she was reading before she even started to write, so she could identify things, but here everything here is to write.  We force children that are four years old to be doing arithmetic. There is a stage for everything.

“Of course, children need holistic care, they need to be able to play, eat healthily, and exercise among others. These things help to develop their brain; it is not just the writing.  The more activities they’re involved in, the more the different aspects of the brain are developed.

“Rather, parents should make time out to read to children in the evening or before they go to bed at night, it takes care of their emotional and intellectual needs. So, we need to get down to good parenting and stop focusing on the things that are not important.”

Research shows that handwriting fully engages the brain, improves memory, enhances focus, unleashes creativity, and calms the body and nerves. Although handwriting perks support the child in the academic environment, parents absolutely shouldn’t jeopardize their kid’s fine motor skill development, keeping in mind that all children develop physical, cognitive, and social/emotional skills at different rates.

Now, this isn’t to say that parents and teachers should completely abandon their obligations. By age five, a child should be able to be learning to print numbers and letters and consistently use one hand for fine motor tasks.

By age seven, a child should be printing words, printing neatly within the lines, cutting out art projects—while staying within the lines, colouring inside the lines, drawing recognizable pictures, begin open packages independently, and self-dress—including manipulating most fasteners.

Sometimes a child is developmentally delayed. Red flags that parents should look out for in their school-age child’s fine motor skills include a child being indecisive about which hand they prefer. Also, stiff or shaky movements are concerning.  Others include weak hands and arms, an inability to draw basic shapes—including a cross, a failure to cut along straight or curved lines, and significant difficulty printing letters and numbers.

Handwriting is important to learning. Like really important. But timing is everything to allow for skill development at the child’s own pace.

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