Sloooooowing Kids Down to Lead

This week I had the opportunity to Skype with a professor,about bringing KidLead to China.  I was quite intrigued by this PhD's interest, not so much on our curricula for ages 6-18, but rather 2-5s.  When I asked why, she said it's because by school age, parents are very focused on helping their children obtain academic success and busy them with all sorts of tutoring and school-oriented programs.  Her strategy was to get to young leaders early, very early.

I am amazed how "busy kids" is the modus operandi globally, not just for those of us in the US.  We hear the same things with our work in Thailand, Singapore, and Dubai.  Ironically,the academic success feeding frenzy preoccupies children from developing life skills that will help them accomplish more in life.  An organization has emerged to push back on this tendency, of all places, at Stanford University (http://www.challengesuccess.org/).  Fortunately, some savvy people are recognizing there is more to life than good grades and activities ad nauseam.  Unless we make room for intentional playtime focus on leadership social skills, we won't have anyone effective or ethical leading these straight-A students, or worse, they'll be leading them down the wrong roads as seen in the Kenya Mall massacre this week.