So I got a little excited about the whole homeschool thing for my newly turned 4 year old and decided I needed to start "teaching" him right away. I started a "table time" each day where we do a lesson from ordinary parents guide to reading, then a lesson from preschool math at home, followed by rod and staff workbooks and a simple craft or science project. My almost 3 year old has been tagging along with us for it too. Anyways the kids absolutely love it and drag the basket out every day begging to learn a new letter. I never force them to sit down at the table or anything and if their not interested in something I just move on, but that pretty much never happens. At the same time my 4 year old totally isn't picking up on the lessons from ordinary parents guide (were still working through the letters). My almost 3 year old is actually picking up letter sounds better than him I think. But now that I've done a bit more research and read a couple books I keep seeing that it's recommended to hold off academics until age 6 or first grade. It seems to be an across the board reccomendation for all the major theories on education. So now I'm totally panicked that I've started things too fast and am going to mess my kids up! I've tried to stop what I've been doing but my kids keep begging for their workbooks. Like my four year old was in tears when I tried to just do craft instead of bringing out his table time basket. So now I'm at a loss as what to do?? Is it really that bad to start academics early? I read a book on waldorf that goes so far as to say you will mess up your child's physical development like their body and organs and everything if you start academics before first grade....