Raising a joyful generation

Justin Pasquariello
4 min readAug 29, 2023

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It starts with relationships

The pandemic lockdown began fewer than three months after my daughter’s second birthday. She didn’t have the chance to socialize with children her older brother had had at that age, but when we went to playgrounds, she often made fast friends. We could see she was desperate to connect more with other children, as they chased each other around. When she started pre-school, I was surprised to hear she was very shy.

Our last post discussed our August 2 Every Child Shines convening and our vision for all East Boston children to enter Kindergarten joyful, thriving and ready to learn. This week, we discuss the role each of us should play in helping children build strong relationships to achieve that vision.

As Mary Dooley and other early educators shared at our Every Child Shines convening, a young child’s ability to build relationships[1] is an essential skill. We must help end the epidemic of loneliness[2] by developing children’s relationship skills from an early age.

Strong child-teacher relationships are associated with a variety of positive outcomes. A child’s ability to build strong relationships with peers is foundational for personal emotional wellbeing.[3] That personal emotional wellbeing is essential for a child’s academic persistence and success too.

We all can help children build strong relationships. We must start by making their healthy relationships a priority[4], and can then teach them relationship skills and giving them opportunities to use those skills and connect with others.

Parents can start by asking: how can I help my child develop relationship skills? How can I help my child build new relationships? A variety of excellent resources, including this one from ZERO TO THREE, will help with answers.

Early educators, pediatricians, administrators, and others supporting young children and parents should ask: how can/ should this program support relationship skills? How can we connect children with each other, and with adults, to build relationships? How can we support parents as they help their children build relationships?

Early education programs can follow proven best practices and leverage resources which include the Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Program here in Massachusetts, and this one from the National Center for Pyramid Model Interventions. Community movements like Every Child Shines should identify, and help provide, relevant relationship-focused trainings for programs across a community.

Those supporting parents should connect them with evidence-based parenting training like Families First Parenting Programs, and evidence-based interventions including the Basics, to help parents build strong relationships with their children — and teach their children to build those relationships with others.

As we slowly emerge from the pandemic, our early educators and partners supporting young children have reported a significant increase in young child mental, developmental and behavioral health needs. Policymakers and leaders in the field should keep talking with parents and teachers to understand trends and help us support our children’s relationship skills as the context changes.

We all also can collaborate to limit young children’s access to screens, given that excessive screen time is associated with slowed social development. And we can carefully curate content, so when children are watching television, they are watching programming from the limited group of shows that promote some social-emotional skills.[5]

My daughter’s teachers supported her and encouraged budding friendships, and my wife helped her process her questions and learning about friendships. Within the year, my daughter was much more outgoing. She recently had her last day of her pre-school summer program, and she heads to Kindergarten with several close friends joining at her new school.

I’m can’t claim to have it all figured out for either of our children; my wife and I keep reading, learning, talking, and thinking about how to help our children have healthy relationships that support their joy. We keep asking how we can do better. But we definitely can say we are grateful to their early education teachers, coaches, instructors, loving family members, and friends who give them care and attention and model good relationships — teaching them important skills and giving them the confidence to use them.

Every Child Shines — and initiatives like it — can help us all as we help children build those skills and those connections. Together, we can build a more joyful, healthy community — starting with children and families.

This is the 27th post about boosting joy the only way we can: in community — and the second post in a short series about helping all children enter Kindergarten joyful. Please share, subscribe (https://medium.com/@justinpasquariello), and join our movement by emailing me or supporting East Boston Social Centers: https://www.ebsocialcenters.org/support

[1] We have discussed relationships in several blog posts, including this one about the role of community in supporting relationships.

[2] The Surgeon General’s declaration of an epidemic of loneliness in May has been widely reported.

[3] Strong relationships with teachers increase student engagement, academic and social development; strong relationships with students increase teacher job satisfaction and improve teacher performance too. Strong relationships with teachers and parents can be mutually reinforcing and lead to early childhood outcomes including increased ability “to concentrate, explore the environment, and ask adults for help” (Tuttle 2009).

[4] This newsletter, from Weave (the Aspen Institute’s initiative dedicated to strengthening social fabric), features great books and resources about helping children prioritize relationships over achievement.

[5] See screen time guidelines from the American Psychological Association.

A poster about my daughter Skye, with quotes about her from her friends, from her pre-school graduation. Thank you to her caring teachers and to Children’s Corner!

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Justin Pasquariello
Justin Pasquariello

Written by Justin Pasquariello

Justin is Executive Director at East Boston Social Centers, where we are leading an evidence-based movement to significantly increase community joy.

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