The Two Year Window

"...These problems incur large costs. Think about the lost wages from serious mental health problems, which total $200 billion a year, according to a 2008 study from the American Journal of Psychiatry. Or think about the expense of incarcerating criminals: about $60 billion a year, according to a 2006 study from the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons. Childhood adversity obviously doesn’t account for all of these sums. But if the studies are correct, then adversity explains a significant portion—certainly in the tens of billions of dollars. And the implications go beyond mental illness or crime. Children who fail to develop coping mechanisms struggle from the earliest days in school, because even the slightest provocations or setbacks destroy their focus and attention. They can’t sit still and read. They have trouble standing in line. They lash out at classmates or teachers. And these struggles, naturally, lead to other problems that perpetuate the cycle of poverty. All of this is to say that the science of early childhood may play a significant role in the dominant political question of our time: rising inequality...." This is a 'Must Read' Article.

via Facebook http://www.newrepublic.com/article/economy/magazine/97268/the-two-year-window