What Should a 4 Year Old Know?
Sep 17th, 2008 by Alicia
So I have this little article on my web site that I wrote up years ago about what a 4 year old should know. I wrote it when I was feeling a bit grumpy about how competitive we parents we all getting with each other and how pushy schools and parents were getting towards little people.
Over the years it’s been one of the pages that I’ve gotten the most letters about and requests to reprint.
I’ve had a lot of preschool teachers, librarians, day care providers and elementary school teachers write and say that they want to make copies for parents.
I’ve had a lot of mothers write me and tell me they were freaking out about their 4 year olds not knowing this or that and how they were grateful to get a reminder about what matters most for our kids.
I’ve also had moms’ clubs, Head Start groups and other organizations ask to reprint it in newsletters.
I even had a mother (a teacher, incidentally) write me last week and tell me that she’d sent it to her grown son because he was stressing out about her grandson not getting into a super-competitive Montessori school. She was ranting up a storm about why they needed to teach preschoolers about Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (I gotta agree).
It’s pretty cool.
This past week was even cooler though, because it was featured on this TV show in Utah (and surrounding states!). The host, Maria Carr, wrote me last month and asked if she could feature it. I said yes (of course!) and she also offered to have me on the show. My fabulous friend Val even offered to fly me out there and go with me as moral support if when I get my book published.
(I’m not thinking too much about that part, because the reality of it might sink in and terrify me.)
Maria wrote me the other day and asked for my address to mail me a copy of the DVDs of her show. It turns out she featured A Magical Childhood stuff two different weeks because there was more she wanted to cover! Wow! I can’t wait to see them.
Today I got an email from a child psychologist’s office, asking for permission to make the article into a handout for her waiting room. Again, wow!
It’s all a bit surreal and I just felt like sharing.
The moral of the story? The world needs to let up on four year olds. 
That is a really great article!
It liftet some weight off my shoulders!
And it’s not just for 4 year old kids, I thinks this is what we as parents needs to have in the back of our heads even if our kids are 4 or 8 yo!
I knew instantly without looking what article you were talking about as I’ve come back to find it a time or two myself when someone has mentioned stressing about preschool. What you wrote is oh-so-true and I can’t help wondering just how many little people have been helped and set free a little longer because of it. I wish everyone knew that it really is as simple as just enjoying being with them. :o)
Thank you for writing it and for putting it out there in hopes of calming a few parent’s preschool worries. I’m so thrilled for you that it’s becoming a well known and loved piece of parenting advice –that people are pulling THAT one out of the stacks and saying “LOOK” — and that it’s gained so much more importance than you imagined it would when you first wrote it! I can’t even imagine how thrilled YOU must be! :o) I’m really proud of you.
[…] Magic & Mayhem, is having her article “What Should A 4 Year Old Know?” recognized all over the place. The article is about competitive parents and schools pushing “little […]