Essential Questions

Everyone seems to agree that early childhood is critical for children. There are hosts of studies that show the developmental and health impacts of the way that parents provide nurture. So it is wise to ask why this period is so critical. Is it simply because habits are ingrained during this time? Is it because of the nature and speed of brain development during this period? Or is there something else?

What role do stories play in child development?
In the earliest years of life, each child learns to make sense of the world. You can watch a toddler trying to stack blocks, and finding that only when the blocks are directly on top of one another will they remain standing. By this trial and error, he is learning something about the way the world is.

Just as important as experimentation in early childhood is listening. The child is absorbing the messages he hears about what is acceptable and unacceptable, what is valuable to her parents, and why these things are so. The pervasive "Why?" of the toddler years is part of the diligent quest to understand the way things are, and ought to be.

For this reason, stories play a critical role. Certainly they diversity of vocabulary affects brain development, as two Kansas researchers have documented. Yet the story that parents tell their children is just as important as the stories they read and tell together because it provides framework within which the stories are understood. The story is the way that parents make sense of the world, and communicate it to their children.

Think, for example of the story that the King family told to Martin Luther King Jr. Did they tell him that segregation was simply the way things are? Or that because it was wrong, they ought to rise up and riot? The Kings raised their children to understand that there is injustice in the world and that there are wise, faithful and powerful ways to overcome it. Far more important than the big words that he learned from his father was the overarching story that shaped the King family. If Martin had developed the same rhetorical powers in a family that cherished anger and violence or simply accepted the status quo, who knows how different our nation's history might have been.

The pressing questions for parents are: What is the story you are telling your children? Are you satisfied with the stories you have been told? How are you intentionally communicating the story that you want your children to embrace?