A Tale of Two Children

Consider the differences between a child given the opportunity to succeed in life, and one who was not given such opportunities. Follow the link to read this powerful, short post shared by our partners at American Academy of Pediatrics and Reach Out and Read.

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A Tale of Two Children by Dr. Olson Huff

It was, according to the opening words of Charles Dickens’ famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities, “the best of times the worst of times.”

Although far removed from the French Revolution, the contrasting scenes those words evoke are very much reflected in the lives of America’s children today. Consider the increasing numbers of those in poverty who live on the fringe of hope and for whom the worst of times simply last and last and last.  If current research on the developing brain is accurate, and mounting evidence says it is, then the child who sits in that fringe will be hard pressed to move beyond it. For what we are now learning is that the stress to the delicate  brain of a very young child, struggling to survive in a hostile environment punctuated with violence, rejection, hunger, illness, homelessness and fear is too much to permit its normal development. The chemical dance that inhabits and protects us becomes a frenetic force that destroys rather than nurtures and, as a result, the brain forever loses vital connections that have been designed to plan, think, behave, learn and rejoice.

Consider then, the tale of two children...