I worried about all the wrong things when my children were in preschool.
I came to this realization after spending four months observing preschool teachers toiling through a difficult year with a few hard-to-manage students.
Eight years ago, my husband and I were entrenched in raising preschoolers. The 0- to-6-year-old dogma was drilled into us: This is peak brain-development time. Their academic progress -- along with their physical safety, health and general happiness -- consumed much of my attention during those preschool years.
The latest research, however, suggests that the "soft skills" of social and emotional development are strongly correlated with long-term academic and life success.
A study published last month in the American Journal of Public Health found that kindergarten teachers' assessments of their students' social competencies were a powerful predictor of the likelihood of a range of outcomes down the road. Even after accounting for factors such as poverty, race, family stress and neighborhood crime, a child's "non-cognitive" skills -- such as self-regulation and being able to get along with others -- were correlated to his or her odds of graduating high school and college, committing a crime, securing gainful employment, and having mental health or substance-abuse issues later in life.
Preschool teachers have likely always known the importance of social skills, but parents may have underestimated it. Years of headlines screaming about brain development and "Einstein" learning systems for babies shifted our attention to academic skills.
Like so many parents do, I got caught up in the learning that is easiest to measure. How well were they reading? Did they understand basic math concepts? How well did they write their names? How far along were their gross and fine motor skills?
I embraced perhaps the most plaintive middle class vexation: Were they being challenged enough?
My knowledge of what happens in a preschool classroom was limited to the parties, the teacher conferences and chats during the daily drop-off and pickup.
Years later, after observing a classroom for hours at a time over a period of four months, I gained new insight. When I watched Christine Grosch and Paula Ayers of St. Louis' University City Children's Center run their class, I saw skirmishes and victories that aren't as easily measured as the progression on a reading chart.
Here is what I saw Grosch and Ayers focus on.
They narrated a lot of what they were presently doing, what they saw around them and what would happen next. They asked the children to wonder aloud, as well. Grosch sang often. Both teachers read aloud frequently and with exaggerated emotion.
They asked their students a lot of questions: What did you like best? What did you do? What happened in that story? What was that song about?
All of this talking is beneficial: Preschoolers learn five to six words a day, and teachers are introducing new words constantly.
Ayers and Grosch didn't jump in and do things for their students. They would brainstorm with them to solve problems and praise a child for figuring something out on his or her own.
"It's important to strike a balance between 'doing' and 'not doing,'" Grosch explained to me. "Sometimes 'not doing' is just as important as intervening."
Grosch and Ayers talked aloud in situations where a child's self-control was tested. They played board games and card games that required taking turns and following rules.
They were often over-the-top in their enthusiasm.
They had simple, step-by-step problem-solving procedures in place, and prompted students as needed: How can we solve this? What do you need to make this happen? Did you talk to the other person?
They hugged or carried or had children in their laps constantly.
They gave shy kids words like "Can I play with you?" to use when they wanted to join other children.
When a child got hurt, they would ask the offender what he or she could do to help the other child feel better. They encouraged the same thing when a classmate was sad or crying. They pointed out the feelings of characters in books.
Grosch and Ayers gave the children opportunities to cut, color, paste, paint and play. Kids were expected to put their own coats on and hang them up; go to the bathroom on their own and wash their hands; serve themselves snacks and eat them neatly.
Watching the day-to-day mechanisms of early childhood education made me wish I had focused my attention differently.
When my own kids were 3 and 4, I should have let them attempt to do more things for themselves that may have seemed a little above their abilities. I should have asked their teachers more questions about their social development and how to nurture those skills. I should have put as much energy into giving them a robust vocabulary to describe emotions as I did making sure they knew their colors and numbers.
Luckily for us, our children thrived with excellent preschool teachers. I just wish I had better understood how critically emotional and social skills are tied to lifelong success, and how a talented teacher imparts those skills.
I would have worried a lot less.