My friend's daughter is 2.5 years old. From the time she was one, my friend has been actively helping the kid learn new stuff. He is an overenthusiastic person, besides Covid lockdown has helped him spend a lot of time with the kid at home.
Using the lockdown period, my friend has trained the kid in memorising names of many esoteric dinosaurs by looking at their pictures. Also the kid has memorised all elements of the periodic table along with the symbols and the atomic numbers.
The reason given for the training by my friend is that the brain development is maximum before 5 years, so making the kid much ahead of the pack before that age is crucial. However I am sceptical of his enthusiasm, and I am afraid there could be counter-effects. Maybe this could stunt the kid's natural curiosity, or the kid could equate learning to rote memorization.
So my question is: can over-enthusiasm adversely affect a kid's learning process? Where do we draw the line, and are there studies on working too much on a kid?