{"id":621840,"date":"2023-03-25T12:53:17","date_gmt":"2023-03-25T17:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/25\/investing-in-early-childhood-is-a-down-payment-on-all-our-futures\/"},"modified":"2023-03-25T12:53:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-25T17:53:17","slug":"investing-in-early-childhood-is-a-down-payment-on-all-our-futures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/25\/investing-in-early-childhood-is-a-down-payment-on-all-our-futures\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing in early childhood is a down payment on all our futures"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Businesses should play a central role in changing attitudes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tMany parents have to balance their working life with a nurturing home life during their children\u2019s formative years. Employers have an important role in making that possible \u00a9 Matt Cardy\/Getty Images
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We\u2019ll send you a myFT Daily Digest<\/i> email rounding up the latest Early childhood development news every morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The writer is the Princess of Wales<\/em><\/p>\n

This year, I launched a major new campaign, Shaping Us, to increase understanding of the critical importance of early childhood and its impact in shaping the rest of our lives. We must now harness the interest and enthusiasm around this to drive real action. <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, I created a Business Taskforce for Early Childhood to discuss how we can work together to change the way we all view and prioritise early childhood. This is not only for the benefit of society today, but for all of us in the years to come. The taskforce creates a bridge between the scientific community \u2014 whose evidence so unequivocally makes the case for prioritising early childhood \u2014 and the business community. Businesses should play a significant role in changing attitudes, both within their own organisations and across their wider network of suppliers, customers and communities. <\/p>\n

The science shows that from pregnancy to age five, our brains develop faster than at any other age. The way we develop, through our experiences, relationships and surroundings at that very young age, lays the scaffolding as we grow into adulthood. And it is specifically our social and emotional development during that time \u2014 learning how we express and manage our emotions and respond to the needs of others \u2014 that underpins the attributes which are key to success in the workplace. Our resilience, flexibility, ability to manage stress and remain motivated when facing challenges, are all shaped by the foundations we build in early childhood. <\/p>\n

However, not enough emphasis is placed on social and emotional development or on building environments which nurture these skills, during childhood and beyond. Parental wellbeing is the biggest single factor in determining a child\u2019s wellbeing, and we know that becoming a parent places additional pressure on mental health. Nearly 75 per cent of people find parenting under-fives stressful.<\/p>\n

We also know that parents make up a significant part of the UK workforce \u2014 76 per cent of mothers and 92 per cent of fathers with children are in work. We must recognise the challenge for many of these parents, and other caregivers, in balancing a successful working life with a nurturing home life during their children\u2019s formative years. Employers have an important role in making that possible. <\/p>\n

Of course, there are many others within the workforce who play an important role in the lives of children \u2014 grandparents, friends, community volunteers. As the saying goes, \u201cit takes a village\u201d.<\/p>\n

I believe that we need to do two things. The first is to prioritise creating working environments that provide the support people need to cultivate and maintain their own social and emotional wellbeing. The second is a more concentrated focus on the social and emotional development of our youngest children.<\/p>\n

The environmental, social and governance framework \u2014 or ESG \u2014 is now readily recognised and supported by business. Considerable progress has been made within a relatively short few years on the environment and governance parts of that framework, but the \u201csocial\u201d aspect is not discussed as overtly or measured and reported in the same way.<\/p>\n

So, over the coming months, the taskforce will look at the opportunity to put the early years at the heart of delivering the \u201csocial\u201d element. While great work is being done by individual businesses, by being more co-ordinated across business and commerce, our impact could be far reaching. <\/p>\n

As the world becomes ever more complex, we have to invest in early childhood now, as a down payment for our collective future. If business and commerce embrace this significant issue \u2014 including how better early childhoods will affect their own organisations both now and in the long term \u2014 we can and will transform lives for generations to come.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Thomas Noren<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Businesses should play a central role in changing attitudes Many parents have to balance their working life with a nurturing home life during their children\u2019s formative years. Employers have an important role in making that possible \u00a9 Matt Cardy\/Getty Images Receive free Early childhood development updatesWe\u2019ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":621841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36649,964],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-621840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-childhood","8":"category-investing"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}