Child Care

Investing time and attention in the early stages of child development will produce returns throughout the life of a child, resulting in significantly lower costs to society.

If parents and society invested their best efforts in children, there would be great benefits to society. We could save large amounts of lost-work and crime caused by dysfunctional people. A very informative book entitled Becoming Attached describes studies done on infants and their mothers. The studies indicate that parents that responded to their infants signals (adjusting their own pace and behavior in accordance with the baby's cues), and who were more affectionate, tender, and careful with their infants tended to have children who showed more competence, flexibility, resilience, empathy, and relational abilities. These characteristics tended to persist into adulthood. We can extrapolate that the results will be a profound impact on their success in many areas of life. (You can find more information about the studies at The bond between mother and child.) Parents that communicate openly and have a good relationship with children are often able to prevent some problems in the teenage years. What we should do: We should find ways to teach healthy parenting skills to people. In addition to adult education, parenting skills should be a part of high school curriculums. Each of us should make the effort to learn effective paranting skills. Society should show more respect and appreciation to those who give full-time care to young children. More Information: Dr. William Sears - America's Pediatrician WonderWise - Responsive Discipline America's Promise: Why Five fundamental Resources Matter Links & Resources for Teens & Parents on the Frontline web site for "The Lost Children of Rockdale County". I Am Your Child Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child The Discipline Book Attachment Parenting: A Style that Works. Yahoo: Parenting, Child Advocacy

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Reader Comments: "The course of our future was set in motion yesturday, today is the day we can choose to continue that set path or divert, redirect the path towards this utopic future you describe. Each and every one of us has the option to continue in one of many paths towards creating the future. There are many who live in today and are continuing along unguided, miss-directed paths without much forethought as to just what it is they are creating for the future, thus creating a variety of futures, all within the whole of our societies. Something I feel would be most beneficial would be the advocacy and promotion of elevating the awarness, emphasizing the importance, some what urgency of placing more value on our children born into our societies. It has been my expereince and observations that there is a whole lot of lip service being paid to valueing our children, but not much effort/energy/resources directed towards actually doing that. Instead we promote affordable warehouse type environments in which to raise, 'train up' the youngest, most volnerable members of our societies. A child care provider no matter how well trained, certified, tried, tested and proven to be a qualified care giver/instructor can not offer any one child the time/nurturance/quidance/protection/ the investment of energy each child deserves to be mentally/emotionally/physically well-whole when caring for multiple children. There is a reason why it takes a couple, two individuals to concieve a child and there is a reason why children are usually born one at a time. Each child needs to absorb, to draw from the energy of at least two caring adults in order to develop his/her personal, individual internal satisfaction. A satisfied individual does not need to fill a void in his/her self with excesses of food, consumption of recreational drugs/alcohol, material pleasures, unhealthy relationships in order to fill a void within his/her self. An internally satisfied individaul is more inclined towards creating a successfully peaceful, sustainable future." Dena 2002-12-16   © 1996 http://geocities.datacellar.net/Athens/Forum/7119/children.html Article created 1996-09-29, last update 2002-12-18.

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