Children Are Our Future, but Their Futures Are Often Up to Us

JULY 5, 2011 IN PERCEPTIONS
In a list of the top 10 most frequently used phrases, “children are our future” must surely be included.

All of us believe it and most of us have said it at one time or another. The question for us then is this: why is it so hard for the reality of our youngest children to match our rhetoric? Often, it feels that on issues of early childhood, it’s one step forward, two steps back.

It’s certainly not because the science and the research are unclear. In truth, they could not be more unequivocal: there is no time more important in every person’s brain development than the earliest years of life. By the time a toddler blows out the three candles on the cake celebrating his third birthday, his brain has grown to 80% of its adult size, soaking up experiences, building vocabulary, and developing character. These are the years when the foundations are laid for all future learning and when interventions produce dramatic returns on investments.

http://www.theurbanchildinstitute.org/articles/perceptions/children-are-our-future-but-their-futures-are-often-up-to-us