This is going to sound controversial, but hear me out: I think young children should master bowels before vowels. We’re living in some crazy-ass world where children who are unable to control when and where they evacuate their bowels are pushed to know A, E, I, O, U, and the other 21 letters of the alphabet.

Way too many little humans are forced to sit still and endure stupid learning songs, worksheets (workshits?), and flashcards when they’d rather be running in circles, climbing on things, and filling baskets with blocks so they can haul them across the room and dump them on the floor.

The rush to sit-down academics with toddlers and young preschoolers is developmentally inappropriate and borders on being immoral and unethical. Not only does junk like this…

…sell like tacos on Tuesdays, but many early learning programs proudly do things like restrain toddlers in highchairs to force them to sit still for learning time (skip to 2:05 if you don’t want to watch the whole thing).

And woe to those who resist…

The thing is, all the running, climbing, and toy dumping mentioned earlier is exactly what young children need to be doing to prepare themselves for more formal learning later on. Young children should be up, moving, and engaged in things that interest them. Among other things, this leads to sensory integration, which is necessary for being able to do things like sit still (vestibular system), know when you need to use the bathroom (interoceptive system), and understand your body’s position in space (proprioceptive system) enough to be able to wipe your own butt.

Bowels Before Vowels, it’s a catchy phrase that reminds us where our focus should be in the early years.

Bowels Before Vowels Wrap Up

I wanted to start producing Bowels Before Vowels t-shirts and bumper stickers, but I was told that would be gross. Do you know what’s really gross? Five-year-olds who haven’t learned to wipe their own butts.

If you feel pressured to push sit-down learning activities over active play-based learning, I’d love to hear about it in the comments or over at myplayhaven.com. I’d also love to hear from anyone firmly in the flashcards and forced circle time camp who wants to share their justification for those practices.

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