Director Rob Reiner, governors’ spouses focus on children

July 10, 2000
Univeristy Park, Pa. --Director Rob Reiner, co-founder of the I Am Your Child Foundation, met today with the nation’s first ladies to discuss the importance of early childhood development and ways that states can provide a healthy start to every child.

"The Governors’ Spouses Organization is committed to our nation’s children," said Jacalyn S. Leavitt, first lady of Utah and chair of the organization. "The initiatives in our states reflect our care and concern that every child has a healthy start in life."

Over the past two years, the governors’ spouses have focused special attention on the issue of raising student achievement.

"It’s important that people be aware of the developmental needs of children," said Reiner. "It’s not just cognitive development we’re talking about. Emotional and physical development also are needed for school readiness – so that when children start school, they’re ready to learn."

Reiner said that just as reading, math and other subjects are part of a school’s cognitive curriculum, physical, emotional and social health make up the curriculum needed for school readiness.

"Services such as child care, health care, parent education and home visitation need to be integrated on a local level, and parents need to be made aware of those services," Reiner said.

Reiner, who recently was appointed by California Gov. Gray Davis to serve as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission, said the foundations of discipline, morality and social responsibility are put into place in the first years of life.

"Discipline starts at birth – not spanking, because that teaches children that violence is a legitimate way to resolve conflict – but teaching a child how to regulate himself through predictable routines, such as getting himself to sleep at night."

Reiner also said it has been shown that the single best way to fight crime is through prevention services such as the Governor’s Community Partnership for Safe Children in Pennsylvania, which works in conjunction with Penn State’s Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development.

"It’s so important to assist parents. They’re their children’s first teachers. It seems obvious, but it’s important to support their efforts," said Pennsylvania first lady Michele Ridge.

Ridge said that intervention efforts in the Governor’s Community Partnership go beyond the early childhood years in an effort to help pre-teens.

"It’s during the after-school hours, between 3 and 6 p.m. until the parents get home for dinner, that is the most vulnerable time for these kids. This is something that’s important to address on the local community level, and the state encourages those local efforts," said Ridge.

This was not the first time that Reiner spoke during a National Governors’ Association conference. In 1997 he talked about new findings regarding brain development, and how those findings related to getting children ready to learn. Today’s session was to build on the progress made in that first meeting.