This chapter brought together some very interesting points for me.
-“Human connection” is a consistent theme brought up in the last week by various thought leaders as critical to children’s long-term development, and even though the neurosequential approach presented throughout the book has effective interventions, they obviously can’t completely replace the role of relational support.
-Unfortunately, the modern world breeds more fragmented, isolated communities instead of healthier, connected communities. While we may understand that better support systems help our children thrive, as times continue to evolve, how will these continuing trends be sustainable without more macro policy improvements? For example, in other countries, there are significant differences in Family leave policies, reimbursement for Day Care/Childcare, etc which inevitably have impacts on the system at play.
-“Empathy” to me seems like a something that could be discussed for pages and pages and I still am researching this myself as I try to model it for my children constantly with “teaching moments” and also more subtly in our life with relational ways of life. I think with some kids/adults empathy may come more naturally and also from what I have read empathy is a more abstract concept so it developmentally comes later for more children? I hope? LOL. The author contends that the educational system needs more work here (eg on relationships and “empathy”). From my experience in the local public school system, while the teachers have been wonderful, there is room for more content and curriculum that would help children develop more skillsets in this area. There is so much pressure to expedite learning towards phonetics for example in Kindergarten but very little teaching on emotional vocabulary which seems odd given the last several years when anxiety and depression rates soared for this young group. Additionally, children are taught very outdated material in their “Health” class (which many children dread.) Meanwhile, many teachers and clinical staff struggle for staffing and resource help. You would thing that there would be more push for curriculum here. I just wonder what it would take to make this change. Perhaps from a policy level? On a side note, two books on the topic of “Empathy” (which my family has really appreciated) are: “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?” By Carol McCloud and “The Invisible Boy” by Trudy Ludwig. I would love to learn more strategies on how to truly strengthen empathy in children as they grow (beyond modeling, narrative, etc).