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No Small Matter: A film about children, childcare and how both impact the future

Katie Carter and Layna Cole

“We can explain the achievement gap before kids get to kindergarten” – Layna Cole, Associate Professor, Bemidji State University.

The documentary film No Small Matterwill be shown in Bensen Hall on Bemidji State University Tuesday, April 23rd at 6pm.  The film delves into the critical time in children’s brain development that has a direct impact on their abilities to be successful in life.  That critical time is the first five years of existence – the five years before exposure to established educational  systems that help kids reach their fullest potential. 

According toLayna Cole, Associate Professor at Bemidji State University, studies show that only around 10% of childcare for infants and toddlers in the United States qualifies as "high quality." This is a problem.  When children don’t receive engaging, quality care in the first years of life, the results can devastate brain development, and, by extension, society.  Responsive caregiving guides babies and children with problem solving skills and navigating stressful situations.  Childcare rich with one on one engagement with loving adults, childcare that makes time to hold babies and talk to babies has direct correlation with kids' abilities to succeed in society, school and life in general.  By the time kids start school, damage related to mediocre caregiving is done. 

Studiesshow that financially disadvantaged families suffer most from lack of quality childcare and lack of quality parenting time with their children, perpetuating social and economic issues for kids in those families when they start school and eventually become adults.  Lack of quality thoughtful caregiving has real potential for catastrophic results in the lives of children.  One example is that normal stresses children face, when left on their own to navigate, without a resonsive caregiver,  become toxic stress - a stress that actually damages the neural pathways in the frontal cortex of the human brain... the part of the brain responsible for planning, personality expression, decision making and self moderating social behavior.   Children who lack quality care often become school kids unable to deal with daily responsibilities and then adults who struggle as well.   No Small Matter lays out the overwhelming evidence for the importance of the first five years of of life and reveals how our failure to remedy the lack of social systems available to help families in these critical years is resulting in crisis for our communities and country. 

No Small Matter will be followed with conversation in  hopes of igniting conversations that will inspire community led solutions to  remedy this grave problem plaguing the future of our communities and country.

In this Area Voices segment, Layna Cole explains how experiences in the first five years of life directly impact opportunities for success in the future lives of children.   

"Remember lead poisoning -when we knew if kids were exposed to this poisonous thing and it wreck their brains? We did something about that. We, as a society, got together and said, "hey, we don't want this happening to our children." Well, toxic stress is the same thing.  We are exposing kids to something that is poisonous to them and it is wrecking their brains and we haven't responded."  - Layna Cole

Katie Carter started at Northern Community Radio in 2008 as Managing Editor of the station's grant-funded, online news experiment Northern Community Internet. She returned for a second stint in 2016-23. She produced Area Voices showcasing the arts, culture, and history stories of northern Minnesota.