Every Good Thing That Happens Between Us ... Happens First At Home

~ By Dr. Patricia Nan Anderson, PhD, Author of "Parenting: A Field Guide"

It’s a cliché these days to say that 50% of kindergarten entrants are not ready for kindergarten instruction. This fact has become so commonplace that it’s lost its punch. But go into any kindergarten today and you’ll see not only that this cliché is true in fact. It’s quite amazing that kids in ordinary neighborhoods with attentive parents can present such a range in preparation.

What happens at home in the first three years of life – and what continues to happen at home in all the years after that – this is what makes the difference between being “school-ready” and not. This is what predicts successful, well-adjusted, and confident children.

Success in life, good adjustment and self-confidence all depend on social and emotional development. They depend on habits of mind like curiosity, persistence, critical thinking, flexibility and optimism. But these are not on the curriculum at school. These are not top-of-mind concepts among educators. But these are the qualities that get kids to the goal.

We have letter-recognition standards in Head Start but no standards for feeling capable. What if schools had benchmarks for curiosity?

Reading and math are important, no doubt about it, but to learn to read and do math, children need to be curious, they need to think about problems, and they need the confidence to figure things out. The key is not more and better instruction, the key is more and better human development.

In particular, parent development. Every good thing that happens between us happens first at home.

So parent development is the key. Certainly we need thoughtful and supportive childcare. Certainly we need effective and humane schools. But if our community and nation focused on parent development, what a revolutionary act that would be and what a profound difference could be made in the lives of children across the land. 

We are a long way from implementing that as a society. But PEPS is there right now.

A parent development model that empowers parents to become better than they’ve ever been assumes that its clients are capable, are interested, and will be successful. PEPS does this. An empowering program is sensitive to its clients’ cultural and personal backgrounds and lets the clients take the lead. PEPS does this. A successful program of parent development models the habits of inquiry and thoughtfulness that it encourages in parents, but it doesn’t criticize or direct or inflict guilt. PEPS is good at modeling. PEPS is like a good parent to parents. And PEPS recognizes, as a parent development program must, that learning to be a parent is an ongoing process. It’s not something you can teach in a single seminar.

So please join me in the task PEPS has embraced.  Join us in developing the effectiveness of parents, in helping parents becoming better people than they’ve ever been and modeling that for their children. PEPS gets it. PEPS knows … That every good thing that happens between us happens first at home.

About The Author

Dr. Patricia Nan Anderson is an expert in child development and learning with over thirty years experience in innovative programming and guidance of parents and teachers of young children.  She earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology from Northern Illinois University and was a professor of Early Childhood Education at National-Louis University for many years, until deciding to devote her energies exclusively to the development of parents and families.
 
Since relocating to Seattle to be with her family, she has become a frequent speaker to PEPS Groups on early learning and brain development and a great resource as well. Dr. Anderson has recently published a new book ‘Parenting: A Field Guide’.