Dianne Haulcy is president and CEO at The Family Partnership and host of Early Risers, a podcast from Little Moments Count and Minnesota Public Radio. She joins the show to share what led her to pursue childhood education, how families can talk to kids about race and racism, and how the two podcasts have similar origin stories.

Listen to the episode or read the transcript.

Working with people at the beginning

Haulcy traces her passion for serving the community back to her time in graduate school. She said she was working part time at a community center and overheard teenage girls talking about what age they’d have their baby and boys talking about when they were going to prison.

“Those were the only options they’d seen,” she says.

There are pipeline projects, says Haulcy, to expose youth to different careers and options for their lives, but often those didn’t happen until high school. By then, she says, it’s too late.

Rather, early childhood is when parents and community members need to start working with kids to make sure their future is as bright as possible.

“There’s so much hope in early childhood. It’s an excellent time to work with children,” she says. 80% of brain is developed by age 5, so as much work you can do before then, the more you can get children ready for whatever they want to do or be.

Challenges

Haulcy has seen a lot in her 30-year career. The big challenges she’s experiencing now are children showing up with decreased social skills, poor executive function and language skills.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, says Haulcy, these things have been issues. With the arrival of smart phones, there’s been less interaction with babies, causing them to be exposed to fewer words early on.

The pandemic showed children the importance of screens for communication, and now the task is to learn how to use those tools productively.

Talking to young people about race

People develop their cultural identity in the first five years of their life, says Haulcy, so it’s important to help them develop a positive one.

For white children, she says, it’s key to help them be proud of who they are without downplaying someone else’s identity.

Children of color, especially in Minnesota, not only need to learn to be proud of who they are, but also get the tools they need to combat whatever negativity they encounter.

“A lot of people don’t feel comfortable talking about race themselves or among themselves, much less to a 4-year-old,” says Haulcy. But it’s important.

You might be uncomfortable, but the most important thing is to have the conversation and not shut it down. If you shut it down, children won’t stop having questions, but they will stop asking you. “And then YouTube or elsewhere will be their teacher,” says Haulcy.

Racism is often a life-or-death situation, she says. Not being able to recognize race or racism and not being able to talk about it can be fatal.

Talking about race is not just a nice thing to do, it’s imperative. “My dream,” says Haulcy, “is that these children grow up and have the conversation that dismantles racism.” To hear more from Dianne Haulcy, listen to this episode of Off the Charts.