There are many quotations about the importance of the human experience of childhood. The best known is: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.” This is attributed to either St Ignatius of Loyola or St Francis Xavier, the co-founders of the Jesuit order, but also to Aristotle who seems to have said everything before everybody else.
Another noted founder, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is supposed to have said: “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” Hah!
The Roman Catholic church replied with Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” The Bible says a lot of strange things but this one most will agree with.
In fact everyone agrees with any form of the statement.
Science makes similar claims: “Brains are built over time, from the bottom up.” “The basic architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into childhood.” Or, “Toxic stress (chronic, unrelenting stress in early childhood, caused by extreme poverty, repeated abuse or severe maternal depression) damages developing brain architecture, which can lead to lifelong problems in learning, behaviour and physical and mental health.”
Another way of putting it is that persistent fear and anxiety can affect young children’s learning and development. It’s not only active stressful situations. The persistent absence of responsive care disrupts the developing brain. This is what happens when the baby or child cries for help and is repeatedly ignored.
[For more of this story, written by David E Bratt, go to http://www.guardian.co.tt/news...arts-early-childhood]
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