When Should Interventions Be Made?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when they recognize the need for interventions and then make them. Someone wrote that America would be free of many issues if we had one generation of loving parents. Loving parents include those who make a secure attachment to each child by readily meeting an infant’s needs. They also include parents who use an authoritative style of parents – not too harsh (authoritarian), not to lax (passive), and not absent (uninvolved).

There are numerous truths about child development of which parents should be aware. Some of those truths are: (1) both nature and nurture affect the development of children, (2) culture influences every part of human development and shows in the beliefs and practices of childrearing, (3) children need to learn to regulate themselves physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally, (4) children are actively involved in their own development, (5) relationships matter and affect each other (parental relationships will affect the children, and children will affect the parental relationship), (6) children are shaped by a combination of sources of risk and sources of protection, (7) timing of experiences is important, but children face risks and protective influences throughout childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood, and (8) effective interventions can be made and should be made earlier rather than later.

There are all types of influences in our world that could be considered as vulnerability or resilience. A loving family is one source of protective influence that strengthens resilience, and a crime-filled neighborhood is one source of risk that brings vulnerability. There are many other sources of risk or protection that affect children and teens.

In addition, there are individual differences in how children and teens grow and mature. These differences make it difficult to distinguish between behavior that may be normal but delayed, behavior that can be changed with intervention, and situations that are permanent.

So how does a parent determine when an issue will resolve itself and when an intervention is needed. It is not easy to distinguish between them, but there are professionals who can help parents to make problematic decisions.

One thing that we should all remember – whether it is spending habit or an out-of-control adolescent – the earlier an intervention is made, the more effective it will be. By making necessary interventions, parents can strengthen their families, communities, and nations.