It is possible to keep children engaged in preschool even when they struggle, but it takes great intention and specialized staff. We work closely with teachers and parents to coordinate strategies best suited to each individual child with the help of our Mental Health Coordinator, Mentor Teacher, Disabilities Coordinator, skilled teachers and para-professionals who all work together on behalf of children with challenging behaviors. Even when we find we are not the best resource for a child, we will first connect him or her to a community partner who can address his or her needs. In St. Louis, Our Little Haven,  Family Resource Center and Family Support Network are three excellent resources for children with mental health concerns. 

We hope that early childhood professionals will continue to seek alternatives to expulsion, by working with mental health professionals and helping staff and parents to understand and practice positive behavior techniques. It truly does take a committed village to make this possible, but it can be done! 

The letter arguing that early childhood programs were harmful cited what the writer called “evidence” from studies of Sweden’s early childhood programs as well as studies of U.S. programs. There has been a flurry of attention to a Swedish opponent of early childhood programs, and he even presented his claims to members of the British Parliament. But he has no degree and did not actually conduct or review any studies of child care. He simply took two trends – increasing enrollment in child care and decreasing mental health and educational achievement among teenagers – and linked them, claiming one caused the other.

I got a lot of calls and emails from people who were also upset by the use of non-scientific claims with questionable political motivation to make an argument. If we want to have a good, healthy debate about what makes a good early childhood program, or what issues our social policy should address and how, we need to rely on true evidence – objective, qualified, intelligent research that helps us understand and ask more questions in response.

Is early childhood education uniformly “good?” Of course not – quality is a huge variable in programs in the U.S. and elsewhere. Do all children benefit from the same type of program? No – families need access to different types of quality care in settings that are right for them; and all families deserve to make a choice to be the primary caretaker for their own children during their preschool years.

Our conversation needs good information, not cross-Atlantic hearsay, to help us create better quality and wider access in early childhood education options, so that families are empowered to make choices that they know are best for themselves and their children. Here’s one suggestion for a place to start. Look for other ideas in our blog space to continue the conversation. 

To me this film exemplifies why early childhood education is absolutely critical. It is too late to try to correct all of a child’s issues in high school. We have to reach them and their families before they get off track. And more than that, we need to give them the leg up that they need to succeed. We have to provide rich and intentional learning experiences that are geared towards meeting their individual needs. We need to intervene and provide access to services if there is a delay or disability. We need to help families find stability.

The children at SouthSide could be just like some of the students in this documentary. They have similar struggles and stories. But what gives me hope is that we are starting early. I know that SouthSide is helping to build the foundation they will need to break out of these patterns. I know that SouthSide kids not only have a better chance of making it to their high school graduation, but also a better chance at succeeding in life. And for me, this helps remove those lingering feelings of sadness and fills me with excitement for their futures.

The Promise and Payoff of Early Education

Every dollar spent in the care and nurture of a child means three or four dollars earned by a mother in respectable employment. This has been said before, but it needs to be said often. The child is washed, fed three times daily, and made happy and comfortable for the day. A few years of such treatment has an influence for good on future lives which cannot be overestimated. The old proverb of the gardener, “As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined,” is one that we may well write over the door of our Nursery of human lives.

Fifth Annual Report of South Side Day Nursery, 1891

Early childhood education is an efficient and effective investment for economic and workforce development. The earlier the investment, the greater the return on investment.

Nobel Prize Winner James Heckman, The Heckman Equation, 2013

The visionary women who founded South Side Day Nursery (now known as SouthSide Early Childhood Center) in 1886 were well over a century ahead of the economists and policymakers who today are directing much-needed attention to the benefits of high quality early education. They may not have called it “ROI,” but these women knew that SouthSide’s nurturing care, nutritious meals and support for working mothers would pay dividends to St. Louis for generations.

Today SouthSide and other high-quality partners in early education across the city not only nurture and feed young children from impoverished neighborhoods, we also educate them, provide critical early intervention for mental health and disabilities, and support their parents’ goals for a better job, a safe apartment, an education, or a path to safety from domestic violence. This approach not only improves children’s lives in the short term, it saves public dollars over a lifetime by reducing reliance on public assistance, reducing expenditures on special education, increasing graduation rates, reducing crime and even increasing home ownership rates. Heckman and others estimate the public return on investment in programs like ours at seven to ten percent annually.

Just as business leaders of the 19^th century supported our founders’ vision – Busch, Ittner, Stifel, Cupples, Wainwright, Lemp and others – today’s CEOs believe in the promise of early education. The United Way of Greater St. Louis and the Regional Chamber are passionate advocates for early childhood programs. SouthSide’s partnerships with Ameren and its CEO Tom Voss, and St. Louis Staffing and its CEO Keith Jacob are prime examples of corporate support for quality programs. These business leaders recognize that achieving their goal of a talented, diverse workforce means supporting programs that develop the academic, social and problem solving skills of all children, regardless of their neighborhood, race or circumstances. Quality, comprehensive early childhood education does that. We encourage more corporate involvement and support for quality programs across the region, in all forms: financial, volunteer and advocacy.

St. Louis will benefit from more access to affordable, quality early childhood programs. Investment in early childhood should appeal to everyone in the business community, from the controller looking for economic efficiency and a numbers-driven investment, to the human resource manager seeing value in a diverse community of thinkers and do-ers, to the astute CEO who sees potential in a curious four-year old investigating the properties of water, planting a seed, building with blocks or working with her teacher to write her name.   

Read our press release, check out our case statement, and learn how you can help us Cross the Finish Line for our children and families. View renderings of our new school!

If you would like to attend, please e-mail our Development Intern, Lindsay Harper, at lharper731@gmail.com. 

You can play a role in making this project a success. Check out the opportunities available to make the “best of the best” available to our children, and lend your energy to this exciting and transformational project. Of course, donations are welcome and can be made by clicking here to go to our secure Donate Now page. 

We said a tearful goodbye to Kirby and Reed last fall, as Kirby graduated and moved on to kindergarten at a St. Louis Public School. Reed started preschool there as well, making Mom’s life much easier as the boys ride the bus together. We hear from Mom from time to time, and Ms. Jackie visited the family recently, reporting that Kirby is enjoying kindergarten, adjusting well socially, making progress and receiving services through the school district’s special education program. We are confident that thanks to the quality of our foundation and the close partnership we established with Mom, both boys will continue to do well and we are committed to staying in touch with them in the coming years.

Like Kirby, Joey’s challenges are compounded by developmental delays in speech and cognitive ability. We were able to catch this within a month of his enrollment at SouthSide using the DIAL assessment and immediately arranged for services through Belle Children’s Services at St. Louis ARC and St. Louis Public Schools to be provided on site at SouthSide. As we tell Joey’s story we’ll talk about the impact of integrated services and the connection to successful learning and social-emotional development.

We’re also working with Mom and Dad, who is actively involved in his family’s life. Krysta, our Family Services Manager, is working with them to ensure they have a chance to reach their own educational and employment goals.

With loving care and patience, Ms. JoAnna and Ms. Loretha have already brought Joey out of his shell and helped him engage with his classmates. Ms. JoAnna notes, “Joey is a great helper who loves being the line leader and lunch helper. He is also the oldest in the class and has become a helper to those who join the room. He lends a hand when a child is hurt by helping them up and giving them a hug. He is a very compassionate boy who seeks friendship.  His favorite activities in the classroom are the sensory table, dancing, dramatic play, and he loves playing with animals.” Ms. Loretha echoed Joey’s sense of empathy: “The other day a new child in the classroom was crying, and Joey came over to her and invited the child to play with him. He also said to the child, ‘It’s okay, your mommy will be back.’”

Compassion, empathy, friendship – key social skills that are so important to successful learning – we’re so pleased to see Joey developing these attributes even in the face of some pretty big obstacles. We look forward to sharing his journey with you.

*Joey’s name and some details about his family have been changed to protect his identity

“I think that from very early ages we [in America] see struggle as an indicator that you’re just not very smart,” Stigler says. “It’s a sign of low ability — people who are smart don’t struggle, they just naturally get it, that’s our folk theory. Whereas in Asian cultures they tend to see struggle more as an opportunity.” It went on to say,

“In Eastern cultures, it’s just assumed that struggle is a predictable part of the learning process. Everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning, and so struggling becomes a chance to show that you, the student, have what it takes emotionally to resolve the problem by persisting through that struggle.”

The idea that children need to learn how to problem-solve and how to stick with a task even when it is difficult, is something that Early Childhood experts have been talking a lot about in the past few years. We believe that our children need to have authentic experiences in which they get to explore problems and come up with solutions. This philosophy really drives our approach to learning here at SouthSide. The children are encouraged to ask questions and to investigate through project work. The goal is that the children are constantly searching for answers and solving problems with their peers and their teachers (as facilitators). If a potential solution is explored, but does not work out the children are expected to come up with another idea. Our focus is truly on the process, not the product. When the pressure of always having to know the ‘right answer, right away’ is removed, the children are free to experiment and to really think outside of the box. Not only is this when we see real growth and learning in the classroom, but this also when the children are having the most fun!