To begin with, we can do our very best to ensure that their needs for care and attention during their time in the womb, birthing, and through infancy are fully met, such that they are provided with the best possible foundations on which to grow.

Research links together both learning difficulties and aggressive behaviors, which are on the rise, with inadequate nurturing in the early years, and also with the uncertainty and insecurity that many children today feel. For example, children who do not receive adequate nurturing--feeding when hungry, holding, and rocking--during the first two years of life experience arrested development in the area of the brain that takes in and interprets information, leaving them prone to reactive attachment disorder (RAD). These children are difficult to reach and exhibit behaviors that are difficult to understand.

Growing up in a persistently threatening environment can interfere with a child's brain development, eventually limiting their ability to problem-solve, and creating a predisposition to aggressive, impulsive behaviors and underdeveloped empathy. This means that aggressive, disobedient children are not choosing to be disobedient, as is usually believed, but are often so as the result of arrested brain development.

We cannot guarantee our children's safety. What we can do is give them the best possible foundations from which to grow. And, by becoming aware of how our environment (family values, media, culture, etc.) shapes the way we think and feel, we can alert our children to messages that condition them to accept stereotypes, desensitize them to violence, and encourage them to react physically or emotionally to conflict. In these ways, there is a great deal we can do to counteract the destructive forces of our culture and foster in our children a sense of control, resilience, self-confidence, and hence hope for the future that will enable them to move forward with their cognitive, social, and emotional development.

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