Good Medicine For Healthy Child Development: Nurturing Relationships
In the United States today, some 27,000 pediatricians provide care to 24 million children under the age of six. Many pediatric practitioners are overburdened
Emotional Connection
The Nurture Science Program (NSP) at Columbia University Medical Center focuses on a new, evidence-based understanding of the critical role emotional connection plays in healthy child development. Emotional connection describes a mutually positive nurturing relationship between parent and child that is crucial to modulating and regulating emotions, learning, and behavior.
Untethered: A Primer on Social Isolation
Untethered provides a cogent overview of the causes, consequences, and varieties of social isolation, weaving together insights from a range of disciplines. The primer also describes a variety of domains in which constructive and creative action is taking shape, including the built environment, technology, and civic engagement.
Friendships Matter: The Role of Peer Relationships in Interfaith Learning and Development
This report highlights the impact close interworldview friendships have on interfaith learning and development and provides recommendations on how to structure collegiate experiences to prepare graduates who are able to constructively engage in our religiously diverse democracy.
Fostering Social and Emotional Health through Pediatric Primary Care: Common Threads to Transform Everyday Practice and Systems
With support from the Pediatrics Supporting Parents (PSP) funder collaborative, the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) studied ways that pediatric primary care could promote positive outcomes around social and emotional development, the parent-child relationship, and parents’ mental health. This report synthesizes 3 categories of action and 14 common practices as well as recommendations for systemic reform.
The Science of Relationships
Dr. Martha G. Welch, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, explains that emotional connection between two people is not a mental process alone. It involves “gut brain” signaling cues from the body up to the brain. We learn how to relate starting in the womb, as the mother’s and baby’s bodies influence and regulate each other. Dr. Welch shares research on the neurobiological basis behind relationship formation.
The Hidden Tribes of America
This report from More In Common, published in 2018, explores the forces behind political polarization in the U.S. The report asserts that, rather than two overarching groups, Americans are split across seven distinct tribes based on what they believe. Four of these tribes make up the Exhausted Majority.
Building Relationships: Framing Early Relational Health
This strategic brief, produced by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) in collaboration with the FrameWorks Institute, offers a comprehensive framing strategy for Early Relational Health (ERH). An expanded focus on early relationships within the child health sector provides a wide-scale opportunity to translate the science about relationships into new practices that can ultimately improve greater population and individual wellbeing.
Calming Cycle Theory
This article in Acta Paediatrica by Martha G. Welch, MD, Director of the Nurture Science Program, explains Calming Cycle Theory. According to this theory, in utero baby and mother establish an emotional connection and visceral/autonomic co‐regulation. After birth, sensory stimulation (such as touch and scent exchange) and emotional communication (such as eye contact and speaking in the mother’s native language) lead to an autonomic response on sensory contact. The result is that mother and infant mutually calm and are attracted to one another.
Foundations for Young Adult Success
This comprehensive report offers wide-ranging evidence to show what young people need to develop from preschool to young adulthood to succeed in college and career, have healthy relationships, be engaged citizens, and make wise choices. It concludes that rich experiences combining action and reflection supported by consistent, supportive relationships help children develop a set of critical skills, attitudes, and behaviors.
