'Why do you even bother?'

First of all let me start off by saying this. I have no judgement for how any single parent chooses to raise their child and chooses to educate them. The beauty of this life is that we are all free to make choices. Let me also say this. I am far from perfect and I get things wrong each and every day. I don’t think anyone in this world is perfect. And raising a child (or 2 or more!) is a very complex thing to do. I am just sharing with you my thoughts and my views. They are not right and they are not wrong, they are simply mine.

Yesterday, I had a call with a potential new client. Her daughter is currently 16 months old and she called me to ask me about 4+ Assessment preparation. This year there has been a huge shift in the amount of families calling to speak with me a lot earlier in terms of preparation for the 4+ Assessments.

We had a conversation about her target schools and she listed names like NLCS, Habs girls and South Hampstead as her top schools of choice.

She asked me this question.

‘When do children start preparing for their 4+ Assessments with CMT?’

I told her that we work with students from as young as 17 months.

Then came her next question.

‘Why do you even bother?’

She told me that it was ‘ridiculous’ for a child to be learning their phonics and their maths at the age of 17 months. She told me that parents should just wait until their children were 3 and it would just ‘click quicker’.

This is absolute nonsense. And if you’ve worked with children for more than a minute, you know with certainty and clarity that this is absolutely not how it works.

Here is my exact answer to her (for context, I started a bespoke and tailored curriculum of learning with my own son when he was 18 months old).

I bother because I want my students to have the best possible learning experience for them. I bother because children love to learn. I bother because my clients need me and they want to provide the best of the best for their children.

Why do I bother with my own son (who is currently nearly 3)?

I bother because I am his biggest advocate. I bother because I didn’t experience the same growing up (through the circumstances in which I was raised). I bother because the whole point of having a child was to provide him with the best that I could. I bother because I know that my son is capable of amazing things and I will do everything in my power to support him. I bother because I love the bonding time it provides us. I bother because he absolutely loves to learn. I bother because I want him to have the brightest and best possible future possible. I bother because I don’t want him to struggle as much as I did (although I’m fully aware that he will struggle in certain ways regardless of what I do). I bother because I love to see that spark in his eyes when I set up his learning for him in the mornings. I bother because I love to see the joy and happiness every time a new learning resource arrives and he has something new to learn. I bother because I love him to the moon and back and I will give him the lest possible learning experience that I can provide for him and I will do this at every stage of his life. I bother because no one else will ever bother as much as I will.

That’s why I bother.

So if you think that you can wait until your child is 3 and then get started, I invite you to question your thoughts. I invite you to stop listening to what others tell you (including me!). Listen to yourself. Listen to your heart. Do what you want to do just like your choices.