Table of Contents (5) - Flipbook - Page 17
Field leaders like Prevent Child Abuse America, the Harvard Center
on the Developing Child, the National Scientific Council on the
Developing Child, the Change in Mind Institute, and many others
embarked on a coordinated mission to bridge the gap between
expert knowledge on positive development and the societal supports
needed to nourish it. Guided by framing strategies developed and
tested by FrameWorks researchers, the field changed its narrative
from one that relied on emotionally evocative, sensationalized, and
individualistic stories about a limited range of adverse childhood
experiences (ACEs) to one that leads with the role of experiences
and environments in child development and wellbeing. Because of
this work, “child maltreatment” became too narrow a policy focus for
the field, and it instead adopted the wider lens of “child development”
and “child adversity” to better address the needs of children and
families.
The cross-organizational, cross-sector effort to shift mindsets on
early development and adversity has moved American thinking.
Take the evidence on parents’ understanding of infant emotions
gleaned from Zero to Three’s National Parent Surveys, which are
conducted every 5-10 years. In 2010, about 70% of U.S. parents
incorrectly believed that infants couldn’t experience sadness or fear
until six months old. That number decreased to about half of parents
in 2016. Similarly, the number of parents who correctly believed that
infants can sense whether their parents are angry or sad went from
44% in 2010 to 54% in 2016. Those significant boosts show not just a
change in opinion but a deepening understanding of how early brain
development works over a relatively short amount of time.
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