In one of my Saturday sessions with the ever-enlightening Tony Jones, we discussed some new research (and its implications) regarding data collected by The Commission on Children at Risk (an independent, jointly sponsored initiative of YMCAof the USA, Dartmouth Medical School, and the Institute for American Values). Obviously, and refreshingly enough (it will become apparent why), George Barna, James Dobson, et al had nothing to do with the findings.

(my link feature isn't cooperating…get the report at www.americanvalues.org for now)

  The report, aptly titled 'Hardwired to Connect', is about rising rates of mental problems and emotional distress among U.S. children and adolescents. Written by a group of 33 children’s doctors, research scientists, and mental health and youth service professionals, the report does three things: it identifies the crisis, it presents what these experts believe to be a main cause of the crisis, and it introduces a new concept, authoritative communities, intended to help youth service professionals, policy makers, and the entire society do a better job of addressing the crisis.

 

What crisis?

The first of the two-part crisis is the deteriorating mental and behavioral health of U.S. children. We are witnessing high and rising rates of depression, anxiety, attention deficit, conduct disorders thoughts of suicide, and other serious mental, emotional, and behavioral problems among U.S. children and adolescents. The second part is how we as a society are thinking about this deterioration, particularly the inadequate use of medications and psychotherapies.

 

What’s Causing the Crisis?

According to (again, this non-religiocentric report), what’s causing this crisis of American childhood is a lack of connectedness — both the close connections to other people, and “deep connections to moral and spiritual meaning.” (really? And the government paid for this? ….interesting)

 

 Much of the first half of this report is a presentation of scientific evidence — largely from the field of neuroscience, which concerns our basic biology and how our brains develop— showing that the human child is “hardwired to connect.” We are hardwired for other people and for moral meaning and openness to the transcendent. According to the report, "Meeting these basic needs for connection is essential to health and to human flourishing. Because in recent decades we as a society have not been doing a good job of meeting these essential needs, large and growing numbers of our children are failing to flourish." 

 

 

What Can Be Done About The Crisis?

What can help most to solve the crisis are authoritative communities: communities are groups that live out the types of connectedness that our children increasingly lack. They are groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who model and pass on at least part of what it means to be a good person and live a good life. Renewing and building them is the key to improving the lives of U.S. children and adolescents.

The report proposes three big goals and 18 recommendations. (I won’t list them all here… J )

So What? What’s the big deal about this report?

Among scholarly reports on children at risk, this report is distinctive in several ways.

·      For what may be the first time, this project on children's mental and emotional health brings together prominent neuroscientists and children's doctors with social scientists who study civil society. As a result, this report represents an early serious effort to integrate the “hard science" of infant attachment and child and adolescent brain development with sociological evidence of how civil society shapes outcomes for children. Call it a new — watch out, big word coming — bio-psycho-social-cultural model of child development.

  • For what may be the first time, a diverse group of scientists and other experts on children's heath is publicly recommending that our society pay considerably more attention to young people's moral, spiritual, and religious needs.
  • It is not new, but it is not common either, for doctors and other professionals involved in the delivery of social and medical services to recommend a fundamental social change model, as opposed to an improved service delivery model, as a key to improving the mental and emotional lives of children. 


  • The authors of this report have come together from across the philosophical and political spectrum.
  • The report introduces and argues for the importance of a new public policy and social science concept: authoritative communities. This concept is the report's major innovation and, potentially, its most important contribution.