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OPPORTUNITY
The opportunity is to teach parenting in high schools
Teaching parenting and child development in high schools allows reaching virtually all Americans and thereby takes a proactive approach of success from early childhood and beyond.
High school is our last chance to reach everyone
No civic organizations have the same reach as our public school system, and high school is often the last site where virtually all citizens participate. Moreover, school is already the main apparatus for preparing students for civic life and is a key site of socialization, including around public health issues like drunk driving and substance abuse.
Early investment produces abundant returns in human capital
According to Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman, the earlier the investment, the greater the return: "Invest in prevention, not remediation. Invest in flourishing lives, not in correcting problems after they appear." Comprehensive early childhood development is key to later success in education and life. Programs that start at birth (or even before!) strengthen families and society.
More research is needed...
... and questions remain
- There has been a huge and beneficial increase in our understanding and practice of ECE in early learning centers. Why has there been such a limited corresponding increase of it in our homes?
- What are the most important social and emotional learning competencies young children could acquire and what are the optimal acquisition ages? How might we begin systematically tackling this broad topic?
- The State of Utah is the only state in which we found a significant program proactively and widely teaching adolescents parenting and child development. What outcomes have resulted?
- Over the past 20 years science has generated literally thousands of parenting research reports but teens say they learn about parenting not from the research or research based books or courses but from their friends, their parents, or TV (O'Donnell Weber and Rowe, 2018). How might this be changed?
- What simple techniques and methods might help parents educate their young children?
- Should teachers colleges offer information or courses on preparing future parents for their important work?