Parents of the world!
Dana Suskind's call to arms doesn't have that revolutionary zeal. It comes close. Millions of kids in America are getting left behind during their first three years of life because of a lot of scientific evidence that is crucial to their brain development, according to a new book. She argues that America needs stronger policies to support parents and caregivers. Even pre-K might be too late.
We have a society that is built in absolute diametric opposition to supporting children, supporting families and caregivers in putting this into action.
The path to changing child care and education in America began in the operating room. Cochlear hearing devices are implanted in children with deafness. This procedure allows kids to hear for the first time.
There was a big divergence in the outcomes of her patients. Some kids were able to talk and understand after the procedure. Other kids are not as active. Children older than 3 and children from underprivileged families fare worse. For reasons why, she began searching for answers in neuroscience and social science.
At the University of Chicago, she audited a course on child development, where she was introduced to a growing body of research that helped explain the differences she saw. One study struck a nerve for Suskind. The study found that children who grow up in poverty hear 30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers. Many of her deafness patients were born to hearing parents who were not proficient in sign language. That made it difficult for parents to communicate with their children. The effects of brain development on these kids could help explain why some of them struggled with spoken communication even after receiving the means to hear.
A decade ago, she founded a research initiative and wrote a book that used the term "thirty million words", but now she feels the slogan puts too much focus on the number of words a child says. It is more complex than that. She agrees with the criticisms of the landmark study that found the 30 million-word gap. The study only had a small sample size and the word gaps were much smaller. The 30 million number is no longer used by Suskind.
Roughly 85% of the physical brain is formed in the first three years of a child's life, and it's only gotten stronger over the last decade. The brains of older kids and adults are hard to mold, but the brains of babies are easy to mold. The brains of kids under the age of three have more neuralplasticity than older kids and adults. It is easier for young kids to learn new languages than adults.
Creating a nurturing, interactive environment for kids aged zero to 3 is vital for their development, and many kids are getting left behind during this critical period. It's too late for interventions to try and close the opportunity gap that begins to open up at birth. She thinks we need to start earlier.
The TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago has developed strategies and curricula to help parents create a more optimal environment to nurture their kids' brains. They have published research showing that their strategies work.
Since launching the TMW initiative, Suskind has had a lot of changes. She has come to realize that focusing on the choices and behaviors of individual parents is the only way to go. She calls her original focus on changing society by simply educating parents "naive" in her new book. She now says that tackling the structural forces in society that are stacked against parents is more important.
Despite parents wanting the best for their children, it was like barrier after barrier being placed in front of them. Some of the parents who participated in the TMW initiative had to work multiple jobs and had less than an hour per day to spend with their child. Some parents lost their jobs and their families became homeless. They were deprived of a two-parent household to raise and provide for their children. All lacked social infrastructure to support them, like paid family leave or high-quality child care centers to take care of their kids when they had to work.
New policies and a new culture that truly values the labor and love of parents and caregivers and puts families, children, and their healthy brain development at the center is what Parent Nation calls for.
She says that America is failing to do that. The data supports her.
The average country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development spends around $14,000 a year on toddler care. America spends less than 4% of the average. America is at the bottom of the list.
One in four American mothers return to work after having a baby. America is the only rich nation that doesn't have national paid leave.
Around half of Americans live in child care deserts that lack adequate facilities to look after their kids. According to a study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, only 10% of America's child care centers provide high-quality care. The cost of child care has gone up since the 1980s.
Around 11 million American kids live in poverty. Children under the age of 5 are some of the most impoverished in America.
America spends billions of dollars to educate the next generation. When interventions can make a big difference, we should focus more on the critical early years of kids lives. Studies by top economists show that early childhood programs have the highest returns on public spending.
Child advocates argue for more spending on kids. They have lost a lot for the most part. The Child Tax Credit, which reduced child poverty by 30%, expired this year. Congress didn't renew it.
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Despite America's failure to invest in kids, there is hope in the history of another demographic group of Americans. Senior citizens, not children, used to be the most impoverished age group in America. Half of seniors lived in poverty in the early 1930s.
In the mid-20th century, seniors got Social Security, Medicare and a host of other benefits. The American Association of Retired Persons is a powerful organization that protects seniors when the tide turned against the welfare state.
She says that the AARP is powerful for a number of reasons. Seniors have a collective identity for political action. It helps solidify a voting bloc. It has a lot of resources because of its structure. The organization is not just a lobbying organization for seniors. It is a business. It has a range of products that make money. The organization has a buying power that entices Corporate America to offer its members special discounts. More seniors become members because of these perks.
People often joke that people join the AARP for the travel discounts and the insurance because they stay for the community and the impact.
A similar organization for parents, one that entices them to become members with lots of perks, creates a collective identity and a cohesive voting bloc for political action, generating revenue by selling products and services, and then uses its resources for lobbying and campaign contributions to serve parent, is imagined by Sus
Little kids can't vote or organize, but their parents can.
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