Why Early Childhood Matters to... HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
Q&A with Dr. Kathleen Vedock
As a pediatrician, why does early childhood matter to you?
As First Things First has often repeated, most of brain development occurs in the first five years of life. We have all our brain cells when we’re born, but we don’t have all the connections. It’s through a child’s intense experiences with their caregivers and with their environment that those brain connections are actually made. And brain development isn’t unilateral. It’s integrated with all different capacities – a child’s emotional health, physical health, social health, and also their cognitive and language capacities. Nothing develops on a one-way street. All of these capacities are important for success in school and later in the workplace. And it’s easier to encourage positive development in a child’s first five years, when the brain is most flexible, than to change circuitry later, as an adult. We really want to do it right the first time.
Again, brain development is integrated with all those other capacities, so starting at one month of age, I do screenings for children in all these different areas. We want to be proactive in promoting positive early brain development by intervening early and preventing problems later on. I think early developmental screenings, at 2 months of age, at 4 months of age and so on, are extremely important.
What’s happening in a child’s brain in their early years?
There’s been so much more research in the last decade or so about what early connections and circuitry mean. The more circuits you use, the more foundation you lay down. In those early ages, when you build that foundation, you start with the basics. You need the basics to set up more complex brain connections. But if a circuit is not used, those connections are lost. Like building muscles, it’s ‘use it or lose it.’ How do children make those connections? Through their experiences with their caregivers and through their senses.
What do you encourage parents to do?
I talk about this all the time, every single day. There are four things I tell my patients:
First, I tell parents to be loving and responsive. Kids need positive relationships with positive role models and caregivers. And I give them specific examples of what that means. When your baby smiles at you – from that very first smile at 6 weeks or so – smile back. Engage with physical expression and gestures, and also engage verbally. That give and take is very important. That’s being loving and responsive.
Two, I ask them to read to your child. Reading is more than just words; it’s sitting close, giving them choices about what book to read… And with younger children, you can certainly read to them and also sing to them. Play music. These are ways for them interact with their environment. Many parents think, ‘Well, my child can’t talk to me, I don’t need to talk to them.’ They don’t realize the importance of talking, singing, reading with their child.
Third, I encourage parents to establish daily routines. We want our children to feel safe and secure. And for kids, a daily routine is associated with a good feeling, of feeling safe and secure. When they know they can expect mom to read a bedtime story to them at night, when they know they can expect dad to wake them up every morning or their nanny to sing a song to them after their mid-morning nap, it makes them feel secure in their environment.
Finally, encourage your children to play and explore their environment. Encourage them to be curious, to go outside and play in the dirt, to play a musical instrument. It’s not sitting and seeing someone on the television, on that flat screen, sing to them. It goes back to that engagement with a person.
These are the things I say every day. I can talk about the importance of early childhood all I want, but parents probably only hear about 10% of what I say, so I actually write down homework for them to do.
What are some other factors that can affect a child’s development?
Childhood stress is important factor. Some stress, at normal levels, can be positive. It’s how kids develop resiliency, which is important to developing into a healthy adult. But there’s also negative stress, what some researchers call toxic stress, such as poverty and abuse. That kind of unremitting stress, on a daily basis, can be toxic to the developing brain.
Oral health is also something that many people, including healthcare providers, don’t consider very much, but poor oral health can impair a child’s ability to learn. It’s nothing dramatic – they don’t usually get a high fever, don’t end up in the hospital – but children with poor oral health can have chronic, daily discomfort that makes it hard to focus and learn.
Why do you volunteer to serve on a First Things First regional council?
I love working with children and families, one-on-one, in my practice, but I was also looking for a way to make a bigger difference, to reach a greater number of people. And I thought that, with my background, I could bring that healthcare perspective to our council.
In our community, we’ve focused a lot of our work on quality child care. We’ve seen that focus pay off. Our programs (that participate in Quality First) have really increased their quality over the years. And some of my patients now have scholarships to attend these programs, and it’s really nice to see that they’re getting a quality early education experience. That is pretty cool.
Dr. Kathleen Vedock is a board-certified pediatrician at the Palominas-Hereford Rural Health Clinic practicing outpatient primary care pediatrics. She also serves on First Things First’s Cochise Regional Partnership Council and is mom to newborn baby Axel.