Please Do Not Disrespect Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Kindergarteners by Comparing Them To Last Night’s Presidential Debate

Last Night was the first Presidential Debate of 2020. But it was not a real debate. What we saw was our President act like a belligerent bigoted bully who would never stop talking, a former vice president getting so frustrated with him that he told him to shut up, and an ineffective debate moderator yelling as he failed to get control. It essentially became 3 men screaming and talking over each other for about 2 hours. I have seen many people compare what was happening to people acting like infants, toddlers, or preschoolers, or kindergarten classroom.  Please don’t compare what we saw last night to young children. I have worked with young children for 20+ years and have never seen young kids act like that. Sure, I have seen young children talk over each other or call each other names but it usually lasts a minute or two. Overall, young children can sit and listen to someone talk and then respond. It is one of the basic things early educators work on and young children for the most part learn it quickly. Go to any early education center and watch young children sit at circle talk and you will see them take turns to talk about everything from what they did on the weekend, their favorite color, to even substantive issues about fairness, protecting the enviorment, and helping people. Young children can do all that. I could pick any 3 Kindergarten students in this country at random and they would have a more substantive and mature discussion than what we witnessed last night.