What '70s Kids Did That Today's Kids Don't
Louise Bates Ames is one of the psychologists who popularized the idea of child development milestones. In the late '70s, she wrote a series of books outlining what kids are capable of at different ages.
The one you may have heard about is "Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant." That's thanks to Chicago blogger Christie Whitley, who reprinted Ames' 1979 "readiness" list for neurotypical kids entering first grade.
It has since become a sort of cultural touchstone. You'll find it quoted in "The Coddling of the American Mind," coauthored by Let Grow Co-founder Jonathan Haidt, and in other articles -- and even my "Free-Range Kids" book -- that ponder how childhood has changed so much in just a generation or two. And by "changed," we really mean how it has constricted so severely, how we went from trusting kids to infantilizing them.
How many of us like to be infantilized?
So I reprint the iconic list here to create more pondering and perhaps a renewed recognition of how much kids can do -- and have done until recently -- when we let them!
"The Child Development Milestone Checklist for Kids Age 6" by Louise Bates Ames
1. Will your child be six years, six months or older when he begins first grade and starts receiving reading instruction?
2. Does your child have two to five permanent or second teeth?
3. Can you child tell, in such a way that his speech is understood by a school crossing guard or policeman, where he lives?
4. Can he draw and color and stay within the lines of the design being colored?
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