Toddler- tutoring becomes New York norm
City’s families feel pressure to start children on the fast track to success at a tender age
I’m standing behind a glass screen watching my two- year- old daughter have a play date. I’ve never thought of myself as a Tiger Mother, but today my shoulder blades are rigid, my throat is dry, and I’m muttering a low stream of encouragement like a punter at the races.
Play dates, of course, are rarely the anxiety- free affairs they’re made out to be. If your child isn’t clubbing another over the head with a giant Elmo, someone else’s is.
And just when you’re congratulating yourself on your offspring’s developmental prowess, some four- eyed brat will run up and liken the darkening sky above to Cezanne’s Bay of Marseilles, plunging you into instant competitive parenting mode. (“Maybe I should have enrolled her in those Piccolo Picasso classes after all.”)
Not really a play date
And this is no ordinary play date. For a start, it’s taking place in an office building on Park Avenue in New York City. It’s costing $ 450 an hour and it’s being presided over not by a mother or nanny, but a renowned neuropsychologist. Then there’s the fact that it may just decide my daughter’s future.
Welcome to Aristotle Circle: the educational consultants for the sons and daughters of New York’s elite. Just last week in Britain, the Good Schools Guide warned that the tutoring of two-, three- and four- year- olds is “nonsense, oppressive and driven by anxiety” — but try telling that to the locals.
“No parent wants to think, ‘ My child is going to grow up to be average,’” explains Suzanne Rheault, the consultancy’s chief executive. The Bostonborn former Wall Street analyst co- founded Aristotle Circle in 2008, having spotted a gap in the market when trying to prepare her own children for admission to New York’s notoriously elite kindergartens.
“When it came to getting them through the tests kindergartens have here in N. Y., I thought, ‘ What on earth is this?’ Because although the assessments are designed to look like ordinary play dates, they’re actually simulated classrooms very much like this one,” she explains, pointing at my daughter, now sitting at a Lilliputian desk alongside three little boys and identifying coloured shapes under the neuropsychologist’s watchful eye.
‘ Olympics of tutoring’
Every other exam in a child’s life is prepared for, Rheault notes, and yet here were parents desperately trying to get children as young as four through the early IQ tests laid on by the Educational Records Bureau without any tutoring. Yet these early tests, she maintains, will ultimately determine whether a child can get into private schools such as Trinity, which includes Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert, and Ivanka Trump, entrepreneur daughter of Donald, among its alumni.
“New York is the Olympics of tutoring and competitiveness,” says Rheault. “It’s a perfect storm because you have failing public schools, good public schools which are overcrowded and then insanely competitive schools. Some of those New York private preschools have lower acceptance rates than Harvard: one per cent, whereas Harvard might have a five per cent acceptance rate. That means you’d have to score 99 per cent in the admission tests and pass the ‘ play date’ interview. I’ve seen parents devastated — devastated — when their kids don’t get into their schools of choice, which is why preparation is key.”
Rheault experienced that devastation when her daughter went through the admissions process. “When my four- year- old tried out for one prekindergarten, the kids were in one room having their ‘ play date’ with the door left open and all the parents were sitting outside eavesdropping: not a single magazine page was being turned. I’d said to my daughter beforehand: ‘ You’re such a clever girl — don’t be shy to answer the question when you know the answer.’”
But her sage advice backfired. Her daughter not only answered the questions addressed to her, but those addressed to the other children, too. “That was it,” shrugs Rheault. “She was done. She ‘ did not demonstrate impulse control’ so she didn’t get in.”
Another child, who drew a family portrait in which her mother held a Martini glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, was condemned to a similar fate, while a boy who was asked to “speak up” and subsequently started shouting out his replies was also cast out into the cold. “Sometimes they’ll put four crayons on the table when there are five kids and see what the one who doesn’t get a crayon does. Impulse control is a big one.”
For these children to be punished simply for trying wasn’t just unfair but avoidable, says Monique Bloom, Aristotle Circle’s chief administrative officer and director of program development.
“There are lots of reasons why a very
No parent wants to think, ‘ My child is going to grow up to be average.’
SUZANNE RHEAULT ARISTOTLE CIRCLE’S CHIEF EXECUTIVE
intelligent child may not do so well in IQ tests — which is what these ‘ play dates’ really are. Forty- five minutes in the life of a four- year- old can vary enormously: maybe they didn’t get to push the elevator button that morning and that’s thrown them off.
“But the testers are looking for socioemotional issues, so if in that 45- minute session your child is a bit shy and not looking the adult in the eye, they might not get in. Which is why in our play- date counselling sessions, we’re watching to see if a child is looking the other kids and adults in the eye and, if they’re not, telling them to practise that — amongst other things.”
So far, my daughter hasn’t committed any cardinal play- date errors. “She’s engaging with the others,” the neuropsychologist informs me. “And she’s got good fine motor skills.”
Take it to the next level
Rheault confirms that, in the main, it’s this desire for “enrichment,” not “keeping up,” that leads parents to Aristotle Circle. “Parents will come to me and say: ‘ I think my child might be amazing at chess.’ With a little help he or she could go far. Twenty years ago, tutoring was for kids who were struggling. Now parents are thinking, ‘ How do we take them to the next level?’”
One answer, they believe, lies in these mock play dates. The tutoring service has proved so successful that it now works with children all the way up from pre- kindergarten to postgraduate level.
“Ultimately, nobody wants to be the only parent whose child goes in cold to these tests — from kindergarten upwards. And as they get older the stakes will only get higher, so it’s about whether your child has an edge. Take your daughter: she seems very verbal, but you might find that she has a harder time at the playground. It’s like a pizza: if one slice is bigger, another might be smaller,” Bloom says.
As I — now in fully fledged snarling Tiger Mum mode — expound on my daughter’s various skills, assuring Bloom and Rheault that she’s “the whole pizza,” the neuropsychologist hurries over.
“She’s eaten all her cheddar penguins,” she says, frowning. “And now she’s upset and trying to take more.”
Just like that, my dreams of Harvard evaporate. What’s their play- date availability like next week?