Education Has Been Hammering the Wrong Nail. We Have to Focus on the Early Years.

Maria and her husband arrived at Adventist HealthCare's The Lourie Center for Children's Social & Emotional Wellness in 2018, seeking answers for their then-2-year-old middle son, Lucas.

Their household is a busy one, occupied with wrestling matches, filled with outdoor adventures, and covered all over in Legos. They absolutely love their chaos. And while Lucas is a wonderful young component of that joyous household-smart, caring, silly, loving and so very curious-he was having an extremely difficult time coping with day-to-day transitions between activities and interactions. He was also experiencing speech delays and was challenged in everyday communications. Lucas needed help. So did Maria and her husband. They were referred to the Lourie Center in Rockville, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C.

The Lourie Center's therapeutic nursery program offers a comprehensive early childhood program that provides education and clinical services. It is inspired by attachment theory, to support children and their families who are dealing with an array of social and emotional, mental and behavioral health needs.

Lucas' teachers and therapeutic staff at the Lourie Center were able to provide remarkably nurturing, attentive care and education for Lucas. Yet his journey has not been without setbacks. When COVID-19 hit, Lucas was profoundly shaken by the lockdowns. Both the isolation from his friends and beloved teachers and the changes in routine impacted his ability to regulate. He would not have continued thriving without personalized support from the team of caring educators and counselors at the Lourie Center who worked tirelessly to assist him during those turbulent months.

Lucas has since grown into a joyful, confident learner. He is happily preparing for kindergarten next fall. Nearly 80 percent of young childrenwho attend the Lourie Center's therapeutic nursery program will ascend to a traditional kindergarten setting. This is an extraordinary achievement considering the program only accepts children who need behavioral, cognitive, social-emotional and mental health support.

Critics say such services are too expensive to reach the masses, and it is indeed costly to provide this type of specialized support. However, societal savings considerably outweigh the initial costs. Consider that the annual cost of K-12 special education is nearly three times that of "general education": $26,000 vs. $9,000 per student in California, for example.

With a majority of our children not fully "healthy and ready to learn," we are shattering much of our human talent potential as a nation. A deep body of research substantiates that children who enter kindergarten unprepared are less likely to finish high school, attend college, and to be in a stable relationship in adulthood, and more likely to go to prison, to be dependent on social benefits, to be unemployed, and to have long-term health issues.

Congress had been working on a historic investment in the early years. While legislative discussions have recently stalled, advocacy efforts continue to mobilize toward an ambitious policy package that would impact millions of little learners and families.

A Future of Learning Focused on Connection

The science is clear that children need at least one stable, nurturing relationship to thrive, and that relationships can help overcome trauma, especially in the early years. Relationships are linked to better academic outcomes. The American Academy of Pediatrics is urging the promotion of relational health to build resilience and buffer childhood toxic stress. The reality is concerning, though: even pre-pandemic, more than one in three young children do not have a caring adult relationship.

The web of relationships around our little learners is eroding: smaller family sizes, lesser adult family friends, greater isolation, fewer contacts with grand-adults, surging child and parent time online, and a race to college that starts very young with overscheduled children and less time to play and build healthy relationships. The depth, in addition to breadth, of those connections is also waning. Emotional connection between mom-baby has been dropping by half during the pandemic.

Starting in 2022, we need to reimagine our future of learning to be relational around key relationship pillars ("PTLM").

• Parents and family through greater supports and promotion of responsive, nurturing parenting;
• Teachers through relationship-centered schools that are inclusive and trauma-sensitive;
• Little friends through increased play and the promotion of kindness;
• Mentoring adults in neighborhoods, activities and communities, including intergenerational programs. An intriguing recent proposal calls for an intergenerational "Caring Corps" of one million grand-adults supporting little learners.

Beyond school walls, city design, as well as technologies that are child- and relationship-centered, have a role to play in helping us connect-and reconnect with our humanity.

Like we have the concept of "zero emission" or "zero waste" in climate change, the time is ripe to aim for "zero human potential waste," a world where each and every child, like Lucas, learns and thrives through caring relationships and is empowered to reach their full potential.