This issue of Young Children holds a special place in my heart. My own understanding of and approach to my child’s behavior was transformed by an early childhood educator. Things were hard when my eldest son was a baby and we were exhausted and struggling. Yet when we most needed it, we found support and comfort from the high-quality, NAEYC-accredited early childhood education program whose director and educators became part of our family. While my son learned from them every day, so did I.   

Maureen showed me how my son’s love for picking up Cheerios developed his fine motor skills. Hala and Patti’s notes about his art projects and sensory experiences gave me insight into what captivated his curiosities. And Jen, who showed us where we could find the delight in learning through all types of play, was also the first person to help us see that our son might be a different type of learner. This eventually helped us understand his gifts as someone who lives on the autism spectrum. The truth is that the partnerships we had with these early childhood educators not only transformed our understanding and approaches with our child, it changed the trajectory of our lives.  

Transforming Understanding 

Reflecting back on that time and contemplating the enormous challenges facing our children, families, educators, and communities today got me thinking about what it takes to “transform our understanding.” How often are we able to shift our own perspectives—let alone someone else’s? I’ve found that it happens most when we are able to start with trust, listen with openness, and actively seek out diverse voices and opinions. It requires confronting our own biases and recognizing that there might be a problem or a gap with our current understanding and approaches. This is not easy. 

Yet I see it happen almost every day at NAEYC, whether it’s our customer care team skillfully working through a problem with a member or our policy team gathering a wide diversity of educator stories and data that inform—and transform—our policy agenda and priorities. Our organizational commitment to centering a diversity of educator voices and expertise leads to new and deeper understandings all the time. Sometimes our listening reinforces what we thought we knew—and sometimes it takes us in directions we didn’t anticipate, identifies consequences we didn’t envision, and helps us find solutions we hadn’t thought of.   

This kind of practice is infused throughout this issue of Young Children, which explores the many ways in which the authors listened to educators, to families, and to children and used that listening to build trust, ultimately helping other educators to increase their understanding of what is behind a child’s challenging behavior.  

Translating Understanding into Action 

The question then becomes: What do we do with this transformed understanding? What new openness do we have to change? Again, I think back to my own transformation and the ways in which my increased understanding allowed me to adapt my approaches and interactions with my son. I see how Maureen, Patti, Hala, and Jen guided me in moving from understanding to action and gave me the tools I needed to work with.  

I see this same process outlined in so many of the articles in this issue—examples of how educators expanded their understanding and adapted their work to put equitable, joyful approaches into practice in the context of their own unique settings. For example, in one of the articles, we see how increased understanding leads educators to consider new teaching practices that strengthen the social and emotional environments of their settings.  

This is precisely what NAEYC is offering its readers and members—not only information about “the what,” but also numerous examples about and support for “the how.” This is the core of using information, stories, and narrative to transform understanding and then translating that understanding into action.   

It’s also what NAEYC is undertaking inside our own organization as well. From early learning program accreditation to membership, we are acknowledging the problems, engaging in listening and collaboration, then transforming our understanding and approaches in ways that we believe will culminate in positive and empowering change. Your voices are fueling our path to ongoing improvements within our association, but that doesn’t mean the path will be easy or smooth. As with any transformation, the process is complex and messy, and it only ultimately works when rooted in the kind of listening and trust building in which we are deeply engaged—and in which we hope you will continue or start to participate in with us. 

Standing Up for Educators as They Support Every Child and Family 

It is due, in part, to the kind of listening and trust building that I experienced with my son’s early childhood educators that I was able to drop my sweet, special, firstborn child off at college last year. I remain more grateful to his first teachers for the knowledge, caring, and skills with which they transformed our family’s understanding and approaches toward our son than I can say.   

But I will say this: Every parent—including those with a disability in their family—deserves the kind of loving, skilled, and competent early childhood education that we were so fortunate to receive. It is so hard to do this work well, and as educators face ever more challenges and challenging behaviors, it is ever more important for us to stand up and support them in supporting every child and family, both in their own programs and as advocates.  

I hope the educators reading this issue will find guidance that helps you transform your understanding and your approaches, and I thank all of you for the work you do every day to transform the understanding of others—about who you are, what you do, and how vital your work is in helping children, families, and our entire nation thrive.  

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