Pointing out the need for strategies to motivate and interest a child to desire to learn during its formative first through fifth years, she said a child's intellectual, physical, social and emotional selves are shaped according to the environment adults create. If the setting is healthy, the child will develop healthily. If the setting is unhealthy, then the child is likely to grow up unhealthily. Strong families are very important, she continued, and share certain characteristics such as the commitment to happiness for family members, an expressed appreciation for each other and doing positive things together. Strong families also maintain open communications, have a positive outlook on life, teach and practice forgiveness and laugh together.
Unhappy homes affect the whole child negatively.
Since teachers play an important role in providing children quality experiences, she continued, they must be well-educated and able to offer developmentally appropriate experiences for all the children in their care. As they have children coming from dysfunctional families, they must be able to plan experiences that meet those demonstrated needs. They need a planner to coordinate the kinds of services that will enable them to address those needs and raise and help children to be able to thrive and not just survive. But, she cautioned, teachers cannot do what they are mandated to do alone. They must incorporate other players.