Today’s preschoolers are carrying the weight of the world

I’ve been teaching preschool in North Philadelphia for 43 years. Each year, around this time, I welcome my former students’ children and grandchildren into my classroom at Caring People Alliance R.W. Brown Boys & Girls Club. I hug the adults, and we laugh about how much their babies look like they did when they first walked through the door. But today’s preschoolers are very different from their parents and grandparents — and even their older siblings.

Today’s Philly preschoolers are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. I have never seen so many angry, hurting children. They are surrounded by extreme violence that has stolen their right to simply go outside and play. COVID-19 has created barriers to their socialization and added financial stress to families already living on the edge — stress that trickles down to these babies. I see the impacts of that stress in my classroom every day.

Last week, one of the little boys in my classroom couldn’t stop crying and tried to rip off his clothing. When I held him on my lap to try to comfort him, he urinated on me. He was furious and didn’t have the skills to express his intense feelings, so his body released them for him. One of our 2-year-old little girls regularly curses at her peers and teachers.

I have never seen so many angry, hurting children.

These children are streetwise, decades beyond their years. I overheard a group of students ages 3 to 5 having a conversation about who got shot and how, and who was lying in the street. They spent 15 minutes talking about people violently dying in their community as if it were normal. But at least they were talking.

The saddest thing is the children who shut down. They enter the classroom so traumatized and overwhelmed that all we can do is give them time and space to feel the love and connection with the adults and children so that we can reach them.

I would like to see these kids enjoy being kids, but they often don’t have the opportunity.

Every child needs the same things children have always needed: to feel loved and secure, knowing they have someone they can come to no matter what. They need a sense of structure and security from the adults in their lives. Yet when our families are working hard just to survive, children can lose the secure environment they require.

I was raised by a single mother at a time when the entire community pitched in to care for children. But today, the entire community is stretched too thin.

We can help by becoming the village so many families need right now. Our boys and girls club and other centers like us throughout the city offer two years of free pre-K education, and many of us currently have openings for additional students.

Sadly, many parents don’t know about these resources. Others feel the documentation required to access free pre-K is too intrusive. They may see preschool as simply a babysitter and believe their child can just stay home with a grandparent. But pre-K is so much more than a babysitter. Early learning resource centers give children the nurturing and love they need while providing parents some respite and extra brain space, plus the reassurance that their child’s social and emotional development is being well tended to.

According to researcher Deborah Phillips of Georgetown University — one of the authors of “The Current State of Scientific Knowledge on Pre-Kindergarten Effects” — high-quality pre-K education’s primary function is to mitigate the way “poverty and adversity compromise the developing brain architecture and circuits.”

» READ MORE: High-quality pre-K has lifelong health impact

And in Philadelphia, poverty is a concern. According to a 2017 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, 37% of children under age 18 who live in Philadelphia live below the federal poverty level. More than 80% of the children Caring People Alliance serves in North, West, and South Philadelphia come from low-income families.

An interdisciplinary group of scientists who examined the impact of state-funded pre-K programs found that oftentimes, “children who have had early experiences of economic scarcity and insecurity gain more from these programs than their more advantaged peers.”

In preschool, kids learn that learning can be fun. The early years are the foundation for learning development and set a pathway for their life. Research shows that children who start out in quality pre-K programs like ours have less chance of ending up in jail.

Preschool is a gift to your child. We are all here waiting for these precious jewels who will one day be leading the world, to provide them a safe, loving, nurturing, and challenging environment with hands-on experiences to prepare them for their future.

Diane Burnett recently received the Terri Lynne Lokoff Teacher Awards, which honors exceptional child-care professionals, for the second time. She is a first-generation college graduate and has taught at Caring People Alliance in Philadelphia for 43 years.