BEHIND a half-century of policies to promote child development, there lies an assumption: that children are essentially equally affected by the environments they grow up in, and that positive interventions like preschool education should therefore help all children. But what if this isn’t true?
Evidence suggests that some children are — in one frequently used metaphor — like delicate orchids; they quickly wither if exposed to stress and deprivation, but blossom if given a lot of care and support. Others are more like dandelions; they prove resilient to the negative effects of adversity, but at the same time do not particularly benefit from positive experiences. In this sense, resilience, long thought to be an exclusively beneficial characteristic, is actually a double-edged sword.
State, local and federal governments, as well as parents and schools, spend a great deal of money trying to help kids succeed and keep them out of trouble. Research should help us understand why some children come out of development programs with enhanced capabilities and fewer behavioral problems, while others don’t seem to be affected very much — or at all. Eventually, we may be able to identify the children who will benefit the most, and consider investing extra resources in them.
[For more of this story, written by Jay Belsky, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11...relbias%3Ar&_r=1]
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