Hardwired to Connect

LARGE AND GROWING numbers of U.S. children and young people are suffering from depression, anxiety, attention deficit, conduct disorders, thoughts of suicide, and other serious mental and behavioral problems. Why? What can be done to reverse this trend? In this pioneering report, the Commission on Children at Risk, a panel of 33 leading children's doctors, neuroscientists, research scholars and youth service professionals, draw upon a large body of recent research showing that children are biologically primed ("hardwired") for enduring connections to others and for moral and spiritual meaning. The authors introduce a new public policy and social science term - authoritative communities - to describe the ten essential traits across social institutions that produce better outcomes for children.The report proposes three major social goals and makes 18 recommendations for social and public policy change.