Rule #1 of bringing up a child. There are no rules.<p>There is various insights, principles (praise effort, not results) and methods that will help you guide your child through life but no silverbullet, not even a rusty cannonball.<p>You can do all the right things and your kid gets in the wrong company, you can do all the wrong things and your kid meets someone who influence them more than you do.<p>My oldest kid is in 1st grade and read, write and calculates pretty well (comparably to half way through 2nd class). He is in a charter school not because we wanted that but because it ended up being the choice that made sense. He thrives in the strict disciplined environment but who know perhaps it&#x27;s hindering his ability to think for himself. (we are considering moving him to a more alternative school for the last half of his school life for that reason)<p>My youngest kid is two and in pre-school he can count, the alphabet, can say which letters and numbers are which.<p>Maybe this is a good thing for one and a bad thing for the other. Perhaps by not being able to read yet the younger kid would have developed a different perspective, perhaps their &quot;own language&quot; which would influence them later in life. Perhaps it would be better for them to develop their body language than their oral language. There are simply too many factors to even begin claiming one thing is sure to work. Two kids brought up the exact same way can end up being very different people.<p>All too often we think that children are concepts which we build up to a succesful future, when in fact all they are, are projects we can manage to stay out of the worst trouble.