Does the Age Children Start School Affect Their Happiness?

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Does the Age Children Start School Affect their Happiness? Britain's children are the unhappiest they've ever been, teenage suicide rates are at a record high and 1 in 8 children are said to be suffering from depression. But why is this? Psychologists put it down to factors such as the high levels of divorce among families, or the celebrity culture of today forcing children to feel inadequate compared to people who've been airbrushed beyond recognition. However I believe this widespread discontent has an additional cause that the government has simply failed to address and that is that British children simply start school much too early. It might not seem like a big deal to you and I. We've all become accustomed to the fact that we start education age four or five and at the time we go to school without questioning whether we've had any time at all to develop as people. From the age of seven we're already faced with the prospect of exams, we're placed into groups based on ability and we're given a substantial amount of homework most nights after school to complete without fail. This kind of activity carries on for at least fourteen years, and even longer for those who attend university. Have we had much time to just BE children and partake in purely childlike activities? No we have not. Imagine a place where children don't begin school until they're at least seven and homework is restricted to 30 minutes a night. A place where there are no uniforms, no entrance exams, and it is illegal to to divide children into sets based on ability. No it's not a figment of my imagination, schools are like this are all over Scandinavia and this original way of teaching reflects in their results, as these countries top pretty much every educational league table ever. Not only do they perform academically exceptionally well, their children are also among the happiest of

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