DCRC Blog

From the time a baby is born until they establish themselves as adults, many parents are at least a little concerned with how intelligent their child will be (I know I sure do!). While it is important that children learn their ABCs and 123s, and pass college entrance exams, developing a child’s emotional intelligence is an aspect of our child’s development that we must consider in an ongoing, intentional manner.

If you are a parent, we often feel as though there is never enough time in a day to complete all of the tasks on our to-do-list and take care of our children and families. We might want to think about the message we are sending our children as we hurry through our days without taking time for each other.

To help ward off the stress of the season, Devereux Center for Resilient Children (DCRC) Early Childhood Specialist and National Trainer Nefertiti B. Poyner, Ed.D., offers tips for families to slow down and focus on being present, not perfect.

In Spring of 2018, the DCRC team read the book, The Deepest Well: Healing from Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity, by Nadine Burke Harris. Prior to reading this book, I certainly had some knowledge about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study and ACEs. Burke Harris’s stories and experiences as a medical professional and practitioner in a high-risk neighborhood in San Francisco, CA brought my understanding to a whole new level.

My mom and I were talking recently about my daughter’s development. She was wondering if I thought Madison (who is 4 years old) was ready for kindergarten. Lately, we have seen her become a lot better at letter and sound recognition. We are now working with her on her numbers … it’s a brutal process! To say that she is not interested would be an understatement.

My colleague, Nefertiti Poyner, was invited to speak along with a very prestigious group that put a laser focus on the unacceptably poor maternal health outcomes for Black women in the United States. The personal stories of loss were heartbreaking, and the statistics surrounding maternal health for Black women were eye-opening…

For those of us who have chosen careers that focus on promoting the well-being of young children, we know how quickly the years go by. We also know that the work we do to promote children’s resilience in early childhood needs to carry onward into elementary school.

I have been working in the field of early childhood resilience for over 20 years. For as many of those years, I have been tormented by the epidemic of preschool expulsion. In my late 20s, my first real social work position was in an expulsion preschool, where we served children who had been dismissed from at least three other preschools become coming to us.

The Devereux Center for Resilient Children (DCRC) team often speaks about the importance of the “Resilience Cascade” or the “Resilience Connection.” This notion highlights the point that promoting resilience in children requires that we also pay close attention to our own social and emotional well-being, as well as the overall resilience of our team members and work environments.

Moral resilience also involves cultivating self-regulation and self-awareness to recognize when integrity is threatened. With this foundation, we are better able to name the ethical problem, inquire into the facts and determine the action that supports integrity.