I'm the OP, and if by counting from 0 you mean "how many apples are there? Let's count 0, 1, 2, 3", then that's not what I meant and not an educational approach I necessarily agree with.

All I meant was what I said: If you're presenting numbers according to "numeric order, but with a weird exception due to the history of typewriters, which BTW your children have never heard of", then it would be simpler to remove that one weird exception. Or, to put it simpler: 0 is less than 1.

Wait I'm confused. You are teaching them to count the first item as "zero"? So if there are 3 apples, you have them say "zero, one, two"?

(FYI, I wasn't defending the zero on the right decision, I would prefer zero on the left)

> So if there are 3 apples, you have them say "zero, one, two"?

Well yes, except they'd count to three still because they're starting on 0 and increase that with each apple.