The words we use matter when we speak out for Kids - Exciting New Research from Frameworks and Leading for Kids

The mission of Leading for Kids is to create a culture where the health and wellbeing of children is central to all of our society’s decisions.  We took on this mission because despite the efforts of countless children’s advocates over many years, progress on many of the issues we care about has been, at best, incremental.

We believe that part of the reason for this is that our messages are not having the impact that we intend and hope for. The frames American child advocates have been using for decades to encourage positive change on behalf of children and their families have gotten us to where we are today. But they have not catalyzed the progress we all hope for. 

In  2020, we began a project with the Frameworks Institute, “Framing a New Narrative for Our Kids”, that has been generously funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Children’s Hospital Association. Three papers have been published so far from this work “Why Aren’t Kids a Policy Priority” examines the deep cultural mindsets that shape Americans’ thinking about children and Families. “How are Advocates Talking about Children’s Issues” examines the framing being used today by advocates and how this framing intersects with these mindsets, and “How are Children’s Issues Portrayed in the News” does the same for media coverage of kids. 

With this work as a background, social scientists at Frameworks began to search for and test new frames that could raise the salience of kids’ issues and increase both our sense of collective responsibility for all kids, and our sense of efficacy these efforts.  I am very excited about new research being released today: “What Does Caring Mean?;  A New Framing Strategy to Shift Thinking about Kids and Families” and the strategy that it presents for framing the issues we all care about as children’s advocates. There is also an accompanying research brief.  This new frame has been demonstrated to increase the salience of kids’ issues, our sense of collective responsibility for all kids, and increase our faith in the collective efficacy of our efforts. It also takes on the mindsets that underlie Americans’ tendency to evaluate some children as less deserving than others and dampen support for policies that support children and families that our systems have historically and persistently left out.   

Taken together, these framing strategies have the potential to catalyze a significant change in the way our society prioritizes kids. Knowing that these framing techniques work is only a start. We realize that a new frame is not a “magic bullet” that will suddenly create change. Instead, culture change takes repeated efforts to advance new ideas over time. Children’s advocates will need to incorporate these frames in their daily communications efforts over a sustained period for them to create real change. We are excited to have received additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation to begin to implement this research. We believe the ideas in this report will be a critical part of creating the culture that all of us as child advocates hope for – one where whenever we are faced with a decision, we ask one of the most important questions – “Is it good for the kids?”