Children Under Siege: How Dismantling Government is Harming Children and What You Can Do About It

Abstract This paper summarizes the ways in which the recent effort to dismantle the federal government is harming children. It then describes things that you can do to contribute not only to reversing the harm to the government but advancing a society that sees to the well-being of every person. The effort starts with clarifying our values. Research over the past fifty years shows that people are most likely to thrive in an environment that minimizes cruelty and coercion and richly reinforces prosocial behavior. One way to advance such an agenda is to create poignant messages that tell stories about the harm that is being inflicted on so many people. The paper describes a system that is being developed to do this and ways that behavior analysts can contribute to it. A second thing that you can do is create Action Circles that enable groups of ten to twelve people to achieve a specific goal that contributes to mobilizing people to work for change. The paper closes with some thoughts about the problem we all face in taking a stand in the context of growing efforts to intimidate those who act to advance a caring society.