Authors in section three call for stronger community responsibility in creating better early care and education. Positive experiences during early childhood, when the brain is particularly receptive to intervention, can help to compensate for negative environments, especially when follow-up is done during the preteen years. Early intervention is especially needed for low-income families who are exposed to many risk factors which can impede healthy brain development. Writing to fathers with implications for policymakers, the author asserts that fathers must understand their own hearts before they can effectively connect with their children. He probes the experiences and models that have molded fathers' hearts and the implications for their children's futures, using research findings and surveys, including Gallup Polls on the role of fathers in America and a national survey of fathering practices administered by the National Center for Fathering.
Fathers make major contributions to child development.
They are five times more likely to be poor, and 10 times more likely to be extremely poor. This journal issue analyzes how children are affected as their mothers leave welfare for work and makes recommendations for policy and program changes to promote child and family well-being. The authors examine fathers' struggles to play the dual role of nurturer and economic provider and offer strategies for fathers, employers, and communities. Although surveys show a majority of people believe that women and men should share the duties involved in raising children, they hold men more responsible as providers. The intense stress that men feel about this dual responsibility often goes unspoken.