Senate Early Learning and K-12 Committee
Wednesday, January 27th, 8 am
Senate Hearing Rm 1, Cherberg Building
Public hearing on SB 6759
Good morning. For the record, my name is Yaffa Maritz. I am here today as a psychotherapist, a mother of 3 children, co-founder of Listening Mothers and Reflective Parenting Programs,, a board member of the League of Education Voters., I am on the Advisory Board of the Infant Mental Health program at UW and Thrive by 5. I was also reappointed by the governor for a second term to server on CCF (The Council for Children and Families).
I am here today to speak in support of SB 6759. I commend Sen. Kauffman and Sen. Oemig for taking a leadership role on this issue and urge you to move forward to develop a continuum of quality preK programs, especially for at-risk children.
I have two points I’d like to share with you today.
First as a psychotherapist, I understand how critical the early years are to social emotional growth. My true passion is engaging with families of young kids. This passion led me to co-found the Listening Mothers program 15 years ago, whereby I work with mothers to foster healthy attachment with their babies.
We know beyond all doubt that kids who are emotionally secure are more resilient and therefore more successful. We also know that emotional security is a byproduct of healthy relationships.
Children who grow up in chaotic home environment with multiple stresses, where parents are at their wits end most of the time, often do not have someone emotionally available to make meaning out of their behavior and therefore become insecure and do not learn a very important skill: Self Regulation and Modulation. Without leaning to calm their emotions, these kids will not be able to have impulse control, pay attention in classroom, be resilient under stress, or follow directions therefore will lack all the important skills needed to succeed at school. In an experiment in a lab, 5 and 6 years old were put in a tempting situations, a plate of marshmallow was set in front of them and they were instructed not to touch it while the experimenter went out of the room.
Those kids who were able to control themselves at age 5 were shown to do better on the the subsequent standardize tests at 4th grade and 7 grade even on the SAT!
The earlier these kids will be in a formal school setting, i.e. preK, the better. The predictable and enriching class environment and the emotional availability of the teachers will enhance their potential to succeed.
Second, as a researcher, I understand the critical importance of the early years to cognitive development. Dr. Pat Kuhl’s research from the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences on language development proves that kids from diverse backgrounds come to school with huge differences in the richness of their vocabulary. These are significant differences – more than million words. These differences put at-risk children at a great disadvantage right from the start.
Since we can’t very easily change home environment, we can at least as a civil society offer equal opportunities as early as possible for kids to help close the inequality gap.
Ensuring that every child in need attends quality preK would help close the inequality gap and help ensure children arrive to kindergarten ready to succeed.
I urge you to take action today by passing SB 6759 in this committee.
I will close quoting Dr. Jack Shonkoff from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University: “Do it because it is the right thing to do”
Yaffa Maritz, Mercer Island, WA (41st LD)
