All that happens before a child reaches 5 years of age.
My friend Rebecca has worked in community development in our city for nearly two decades. She knows and loves the children and families that she serves, and her heart breaks for them as she sees the same pattern repeated again and again: low-income mother-headed households with no way out. The Money: How hard is it? In one …
2 Gen Cville – helping families out of poverty, 2 generations at a time Read More »
How often do you see campaign leaders to opposing presidential candidates writing a joint memo? I can’t remember seeing one before. Jim Messina (D) and Kevin Madden (R) have broken that trend creatively and constructively in this joint memo. They argue that not only is early childhood a sphere in which there is strong electoral …
Character Matters Educational journalist Paul Tough has written an important book on education, early childhood, and character called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. It appears on my recommended reading list. Tough makes a compelling case for the role of early experiences in forming character, which in turn powerfully shapes …
The Economist Gets it Right “Pre-school programmes are known to develop children’s numeracy, social skills and (as the term “pre-school” suggests) readiness for school. But they do not deal with the gap in much earlier in development . . . And it is this gap, more than a year’s pre-schooling at age four, which seems …
1. Parenting Quality by Income Quintile (from the Brookings Institution) The statistical distribution is almost a perfect correlation between parenting quality and income quintile. 2. Relative Economic (Im)mobility by Income Quintile (from the Pew Charitable Trust) Children in the top and bottom income quintiles are most likely to be income immobile. 3. Brain Development over …
Data Visualization: Inequality, Parenting and Brain Development Read More »
Almost every capacity we have develops in response to loving nurture. At birth, virtually every ability we will ever have is latent. It is both hidden and undeveloped. Some of those abilities will develop. Others will never appear; they remain latent. Those capacities that develop do so in response to loving nurture. Through loving speech, …
“How are you today?” a caller asks Dave Ramsey. Ramsey responds without hesitation, “Better than I deserve.” What do you deserve? In Where is the Love? Nicholas Kristof laments the erosion of empathy for the poor, which he receives in the form of comments on his blog and Facebook page. Behind comments like, “Why should I have to …
Last week two important pieces appeared in the New York Times concerning early childhood: Quality Preschool Is the ‘Most Cost-Effective’ Educational Intervention on the Motherlode blog, and Language-Gap Study Bolsters a Push for Pre-K on the front page. The latter article attracted letters to the editor from experienced educational leaders. This one was particularly salient: To the Editor: The …
Pre-K is important, but not as important as parents Read More »
“The dissolution of the black family may do more harm to black mobility than any other single factor.” This is the conclusion of The Economist, surveying the changes that have happened in the 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream speech.” Perhaps the most famous words of a speech …
One of the perks of being a full-time dad is that I don’t sit in front of a computer all day. So you won’t be bombarded with posts! You can expect to see a new post on the power of early parenting once a week (and sometimes more). You can subscribe by email or RSS. …