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Taking Baby Brain Science to the Streets

There certainly seems to be a lot of encouraging activity taking place in the world of early childhood these days – from campaigns such as Let’s Move to efforts dedicated to identifying high quality child care and insuring that it is both accessible and affordable for all. As a pediatrician trained in the so-called “hard” sciences, one of the most intriguing aspects of this activity, in my opinion, is the movement to effectively and impactfully take early brain science to the streets.

Before jumping ahead to some of the exciting and innovative work that’s now being done, it’s worth reviewing (in admittedly oversimplified terms) how we got here. The 1990’s were characterized by a “concerted effort to enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from brain research,” earning it its recognition as the “decade of the brain.” In 2000, the IOM released a galvanizing consensus report on the science of early childhood development – representing both a rallying cry and a very big next step in the brain-building movement. Aptly titled From Neurons to Neighborhoods, it served as a broad and firm, evidence-informed foundation for what we are increasingly seeing: direct connections being forged between the burgeoning brain science and what’s being done to directly promote healthy experiences and environments for all young children…on our “streets” and in our neighborhoods, our communities and across the country.

I have found that on the brain science side of the equation, nowhere is the large and growing body of early brain-based research more accessible, compelling and clearly articulated than Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, under the leadership of Neurons to Neighborhoods editor, Dr. Jack Shonkoff. Based on a firm believe that the science of early childhood – right down to the developing brain architecture – can be used to develop more effective policies and services focused on building resilience, developing executive function and self regulation skills, and ultimately preventing the potentially neurotoxic effects of poverty, adversity and toxic stress for those most at risk.

Adding to our increasingly deep and detailed understanding of the baby brain is interdisciplinary research being done at places like the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS). Headed up by renowned baby brain researchers Patricia Kuhl and Andy Meltzoff, I-LABS is using intriguing modes of dynamic neuro-imaging such as MEG (magnetoencephalography) to not only provide compelling new insights, data and images about the connecting of neurons and the mechanisms for early learning, but also collaborating with people and organizations who can quickly translate this work into real-world applications.

With respect to these “real-world” applications, The First 1000 Days author Roger Thurow captures the importance of translating this science when he states, “If we want to shape the future…we have 1000 days to do it, mother by mother, child by child.” For anyone dedicated to doing just that, it’s heartening to see just how wide a range of brain-building efforts there are now in place across the country – all dedicated to helping all children reach their full potential by directly offering parents and caregivers evidence-based brain-building information, activities and support. Whether bringing the message to families where they live – on their phones, in their inboxes, on their screens or on their doorsteps – the following are a sampling of these brain-building efforts.

Vroom. Vroom’s brain-building message is clear: Shared everyday moments, from mealtime to bathtime, can easily be turned into brain building moments, and that parents have what it takes to become master brain builders. Suggestions for fun, everyday age-specific activities meant to “spark connections” are made easily available via the free Vroom app, along with practical tips, videos and even badges of encouragement. As for future efforts, watch for everyday brain-building messages to make their way on to the packaging of trusted brands. Supported by the Bezos Family Foundation, one look at the Brain Trust behind Vroom and it leaves no doubt that the best in early brain science is at its core.

Thirty Million Words Initiative. With a name based on the 1995 landmark findings of Hart & Risley, who found that preschoolers from families on welfare were exposed to a full 30 million fewer words than their high-income counterparts, Thirty Million Words Initiative is a Chicago-based, parent-directed program that employs the power of home visitation, one-on-one and group interactions, social media, and the use of the LENA word pedometer to study, build relationships, educate and support powerful parent-child interactions and children’s early language development.

Too Small To Fail. Given the foundational importance of early language development and exposure to words, Too Small’s to Fail’s parent-directed Talking is Teaching efforts include direct-to-parent tips and resources focused on talking, reading and singing with young children that are delivered via email and also available on Twitter (@TooSmallToFail). This is a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and The Opportunity Institute meant to improve the health & well-being of America’s children ages 0 to 5 years.

Text4Baby. Text4baby is a free mobile messaging service provided by Zero to Three – an organization dedicated to advancing the proven power of early connections – in partnership with Voxiva. Text4baby provides personalized, evidence-based health information in the form of text messages for moms and babies throughout the critical period of pregnancy and the first year.

Sesame Street. That’s right…when it comes to taking early brain science – complete with its implications for both cognitive and social emotional development – “to the street,” one needs look no further than the beloved Sesame Street. Founded on helping reach all children with life-changing opportunities to learn, a Sesame Workshop – RWJF collaboration is allowing the Sesame Workshop team to study how best to create and directly deliver the brain-building resources we now know are so fundamentally important for young children’s healthy cognitive and social-emotional development. If you aren’t familiar with past contributions of Sesame to this realm, just take a look at what they can endearingly do with key concepts such as self-control (a core component of executive functions skill development) and empathy.

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Are the 3 R’s of Education Sufficient for the Future?

When I was a kid in the 1970s and ‘80s, those who could memorize the most facts and calculate figures the fastest were generally deemed the smartest and most likely to succeed. You could say a “cognitive” and “IQ”-based view of intelligence prevailed.

Enter technology and the shift from Industrial to Information Age. Nowadays, facts and figures have been rendered far more easily accessible to far more people than ever before. At the same time, our increasingly complex and globalized world is placing new demands on us to think critically and creatively; and now more than ever to “play well” with, empathize with and read other people. 

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Taking a Page from the Preschool Playbook

As an author myself, I have always had a very healthy respect for the fact that people not only judge books by their covers, but that coming up with just the right title can make or break a book. Much like the marketing slogans you simply can’t get out of your head (think “where’s the beef?” or “yo quiero, Taco Bell”), a really great book title can convey the essence of a book long after the details contained within are all but forgotten.

Whether I’m interacting with business leaders or functioning in my role as a pediatrician, early educator, or parent – the book title that keeps coming to my mind is Robert Fulghum’s All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. This was certainly true when I sat down to catch up on the morning’s national news and saw the lead story about Rutgers University’s head basketball coach “behaving badly.”

My first reaction to the videos, which if you didn’t see them can be summarized as a whole lot of yelling, kicking, shoving, name calling (in the form of homophobic slurs) was to find them quite disturbing. My immediate thought was that perhaps the coach – who was reportedly instructed to get some remedial sensitivity training – had missed learning a few really important lessons in early childhood. What would clearly have served him well was simply to take a page or two from what I call the “Preschool Playbook.”

Having clearly recognized many years ago that what we teach children in early childhood is immensely important to their future life success, my strong belief that what happens in Preschool does not stay in preschool, but rather impacts children’s social, emotional, and cognitive competency for life. This belief is now being supported by everyone from the top brain scientists and academic institutions in the world to the military, the juvenile justice system, and the business community.

With respect to the representative viral video footage released by ESPN on Tuesday, let me just share with you a few fundamentally important lessons we routinely teach from said preschool playbook, and let you be the judge of just how important they are for future life success.

  1. Keep your hands to yourself. The fact of the matter is that children are not born with the ability to control their impulses. While this leads predictably to a certain amount of predictable hitting, biting, throwing and other socially undesirable behaviors, the ability to overcome these urges is unquestionably important for future life success. That said, most children who get proper encouragement and teaching of this important life skill, can be expected to master the impulse to push, grab, throw and/or shove sometime between the age of three or four.
  2. Use your words. Early childhood language development isn’t simply a matter of how early and many words a child can master for the sake of parental bragging rights, but rather how many words a child has at their disposal so that they can better communicate and interact with others. Every parent and child care provider knows the challenge of having a toddler who knows what they want, but has yet to develop the language skills to communicate it. The predictable result? A short fuse, frequent and unexplained “meltdowns,” temper tantrums, and all of the other behaviors so common during toddlerhood and what has long been referred to as “the terrible twos.” By age three, however, children can be expected to reach such fundamentally important developmental milestones as following instructions with 2 or 3 steps, carry on conversations using at least 2 to 3 word sentences, and talk well enough for strangers to understand them most of the time.
  3. If you can’t say something nice…. I’m willing to bet that the second half of these useful words to live by goes without saying. Preschool is all but defined as a time when children are learning and testing out social dynamics. They may (and often do) say some hurtful things to each other, but usually to test them out and see what happens when they say them. When in the care of adults who help them learn what is and isn’t socially acceptable, children soon learn necessary skills such as empathy and the awareness of how what they say effects others. As the parent of a teenage athlete, I’ve often wondered if the “old school” (loosely translated = belittling) coaches perhaps either missed this lesson or simply forgot it.
  4. Use your indoor voice. Sure, this phrase is often applied in preschool to the goal of keeping the decibel level down to a manageable level in closed spaces. But it is also a very important skill to remember when dealing with conflict and disagreement. In fact, whenever I help parents or teachers learn to instruct children more effectively, I routinely remind them that no one – child, adult, or college basketball player – responds well to being screamed or yelled at.

While the Rutgers basketball coach happens to be the story of the day, it is my sincere hope that the public interest fueled by social media isn’t just a flash-in-the-pan. Unless we want to raise a generation of adults who push, shove, belittle and have little-to-no impulse control, can’t control their reactions under stress, and whose overall behavior we find equally as disturbing as what we’ve just witnessed by the Rutgers basketball coach, we need to permanently raise our collective awareness of just how important early childhood education and stop discounting the importance of the preschool playbook.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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Starfish & Mittens: Helping Teach Our Children Kindness and Empathy

As you are probably well aware, my focus is and always has been on kids, parenting, and families. Quite often – whether in the books I write or at my childcare center – this translates into helping parents better understand, educate, and guide children towards happier, healthier futures.

Today is no different. In fact, I was halfway done writing my Live Well Nebraska blog in honor of National Children’s Dental Health Month, a topic I truly believe should be hugely important for all parents – perhaps more so than many are even aware.

As is often the case when I’ve promised myself I’m not going to be distracted while writing, however, I’ve found myself distracted. As soon as I opened my web browser with what I swear was for work purposes only, I saw a top-of-the-page CNN video entitled Children of the Trash Dump. These kind of titles always lure me in, and I’ve never been able to keep from clicking on the links and watching the videos. When I do, it inevitably solidifies my desire to do more to improve the lives of children and their families. Today, my conviction was made stronger than ever.

You see, I’m fresh on the heels of a very powerful trip to S. Africa, during which I had the opportunity to tour the makeshift shantytown of Dunoon just outside of Cape Town, where I witnessed firsthand both the terrible poverty and incredible resilience of its women and children. I left there more determined than ever to do something. I imagine watching CNN’s story about the plight of Vietnamese children living on a trash dump and at great risk of falling prey to child trafficking may have nearly the same effect on some of you.

The question that often arises, however, is what can one really do to tackle such a huge problem or even make a dent in such desperate situations as poverty, child trafficking or illiteracy. In the case of S. Africa, I joined about fifteen other members of the Global Hygiene Council to see firsthand the incredible power of teaching basic handwashing. Sure, I talk about handwashing all the time, and yes – we teach the students at my childcare center this basic life skill on a daily basis. But calling it a “life skill” has a way of taking on a very different meaning when one is teaching handwashing in a community with little running water and barely able to scrape together the dollar per week it costs to buy one’s family a bar of soap.

The hopeful news in Dunoon is that the four-year handwashing study conducted in the face of both poverty and health illiteracy yielded very promising results – on the order of reducing diarrheal illness by 30-50 percent! Those results would be great even here in Omaha, where parents inevitably are plagued by diarrheal illness and fret over the accompanying need to keep their children from becoming dehydrated. Now consider the fact that diarrheal disease worldwide is one of the leading causes of death for children . That’s why I’m now dead serious about finding a way to donate to the Dunoon community as much soap as I can get my hands on (along with books and beads). If you’re interested in helping me make this happen, by all means let me know.

But back to the children in Vietnam. The “hope” part of the story promised in the video’s promo is based on one woman’s vision to set up a non-profit to fight trafficking in Vietnam. This small organization is currently educating 200 of these poorest-of-the poor girls in hopes of giving them a chance for a better future and a better likelihood of avoiding predatory child traffickers. The visionary founder interviewed in the segment not only refers to the hugely important focus on “saving” girls through education, but also touches on the importance of improving the community’s reported illiteracy level from it’s staggering 99+ percent.

Let me just say that I couldn’t be more touched, or more in agreement. I thoroughly agree that education and literacy is fundamentally important and the key to helping people out of poverty and lead more successful lives. I’ve also become increasingly convinced with the notion that the education and empowerment of girls is absolutely key to solving not only poverty, but quite honestly – a good many of the world’s problems.

If you don’t believe me, then maybe you’ll believe Oprah. Or Hillary or Bill Clinton. Or pretty much anyone who has ever read Nicholas Kristof’s powerful book Half the Sky. Those who read it are likely to be permanently changed in the way they view the importance of girls, ready to join this global movement, and all but insist that everyone needs to read this book.

And finally – I am a huge believer in the power of doing something over nothing. You may have heard the anecdote of the boy and the starfish. It goes like this: a man and a boy are walking on a beach littered with washed-up starfish. Boy picks up starfish and throws it back in the ocean. Man sees this and applies the all-too-common viewpoint when he tells the boy that there are far too many washed up starfish to possibly save them all. Boy responds, “Well, I made a huge difference to that one.”  I love this story. I try to live by it. Clearly, so do the people whose far nobler efforts are recounted in Kristof’s book and CNN’s poignant video. The point is, every human being counts, and each and every one of us can do something to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

At Primrose, my teachers have t-shirts that state, “No matter how big or small, we all stand to make a difference in the world.” My husband and I were convinced to move to Omaha nine years ago in large part because we believe that here in Omaha, we are not alone in our belief that teaching even our youngest children to be involved in the community and help others is fundamental. And our Helping Hands curriculum isn’t just about the actual dollar amount the kids raise to donate, or about how many mittens, books or cans of food they collect “for kids who don’t have them” (although I’ll tell you that I couldn’t be more proud of the students for their selfless and impressive accomplishments). It’s that they’re learning the lifelong lesson that we really can make a difference if we all just take whatever opportunity we have to throw starfish back into the ocean.

With that said, I hope all of you will consider what you might do. Start big or start small. Think globally or act locally. Get your kids involved and I promise, the world will be a better place for it.

On that note, I’ll get back to writing about getting kids to brush their teeth. After all, teeth are really important too. And even pink princess toothbrushes can play a part in the grand scheme of oral health promotion.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska