Nicholas Kristof wrote recently about a new ” ‘poverty statement’ from the premier association of pediatricians, based on two decades of scientific research.” It ties early childhood stress to persistent poverty.
In his NY Times column “A Poverty Solution that Starts with a Hug,” Kristof says of stressed children, “Toxic stress might arise from parental abuse of alcohol or drugs. … It might derive from chronic neglect — a child cries without being cuddled. Affection seems to defuse toxic stress — keep those hugs and lullabies coming! — suggesting that the stress emerges when a child senses persistent threats but no protector. … The crucial period seems to be from conception through early childhood. After that, the brain is less pliable and has trouble being remolded.
“ ‘You can modify behavior later, but you can’t rewire disrupted brain circuits,’ notes Jack P. Shonkoff, a Harvard pediatrician who has been a leader in this field. ‘We’re beginning to get a pretty compelling biological model of why kids who have experienced adversity have trouble learning.’ ”
Lest this is striking too dark a note for Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog, I hasten to point out that identifying a problem is the first step to fixing it. As a proponent of both hugs and poverty alleviation, I was really happy to see this addressed! And Kristof’s mention of the stress hormone cortisol jumped out at me because I hadn’t heard about it until I saw the research in yesterday’s post, which suggested that a pleasant phone conversation with Mom can reduce cortisol more effectively than instant messaging with Mom. (Or whoever reduces your stress.)
Read more. And do leave comments.
(I must look up that article from a few years ago about the Indian woman who stood on a street corner in New York and gave free hugs to long lines of people craving hugs.)
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Shonkoff’s comments are so important for educators to keep in mind.
Yes. By the time the children get to school, there may be a lot to overcome, but affection can help.
good post.
I feel so ambivalent about this stuff. I do feel that it’s important to know (about brain circuitry, etc.), but I feel anxious about the fatalism that I fear it can breed. I gather from Meran’s comment and your response that if I click on the link to the actual story and read, that in the comments to the story people stress the repair-and-recovery element, which reassures me a little.
It seems throughout our history that when we start talking or researching the brain and things related to intellect and ability and future in society, that there’s a tendency to arrive at horrific, limiting conclusions (I’m thinking about people measuring brain size, and about social darwinism and eugenics). And the brain, in any case, is such a very complicated thing–and cause-and-effect is so hard to determine for sure (I heard an interesting story on this with regard to drug trials recently)–that I have my doubts about any given piece of information I learn about it and about people’s emotional and intellectual makeup. The information may be true, or an element of it may be true, but I fully expect other information to come along in five years that completely changes the significance of the finding… because this happens all the time.
And meanwhile, we have to deal with children (and older people) as we find them, and we have to try to do our best for them and find ways to encourage them to do their best for themselves.
Hard to disagree that we have to deal with people as we find them. An ongoing endeavor for me! 🙂