A recently released report from the National Black Child Development Institute takes a confident and constructive look at our children. Being Black Is Not a Risk Factor: A Strengths-Based Look At the State of the Black Child presents a collection of expert essays, national data, and spotlights effective community organizations, in an effort to highlight African American children’s assets. The report challenges the tone in which our children, families, and academic outcomes are discussed.
In the first expert essay, Natasha Cabrera, associate editor of Child Development and Early Childhood Research Quarterly and professor of human development explains, “…We know more about maladaptation than adaptation among minority children. We know more about why minority children fail than we know about why they succeed. The result is an unbalanced picture that overemphasizes the deficits and pays little attention to the assets or strengths that minority parents and children bring to the table.”
