Too Much, Too Soon? Early Learning and the Erosion of Childhood by Richard House

Too Much, Too Soon? tackles the burning question of how to reverse the erosion of childhood by nurturing young children’s wellbeing and learning capacity. Children’s lives have been speeded up by commercialization, adultification, and government programs such as No Child Left Behind and the “nappy curriculum”— a controversial program in the Britain that requires children to hit a series of sixty-nine targets by age five—aspects of which “schoolify” early learners and push quasi-formal learning too soon.

Twenty-two hard-hitting chapters by leading educators, researchers, policy-makers, and parents advocate for alternative ways for slowing childhood, better policy-making, and, most important, the right learning at the right time in children’s growth, when they are developmentally ready.