I agree with the other posts that parents have the biggest impact on what that child's life is going to be like. Parents that don't want to do the best for their child are rarities. But of course, not all mom's and dad's had good parenting, were traumatized as children, and just don't know how. Some feel like they need to prepare their child for a difficult life. Home visiting Public Health Nurses are skilled at developing caring relationships with parents and then helping them to understand their child's development and needs. The research for these programs is vast and positive. The research for using community health workers instead of nurses (because nurses are expensive) does not have the same positive effect. Resources need to be focused on researched programs that improve parenting skills and support parents.

Empowering parents may mean re-imaging how our society views family and family function. Many families seem to have a naturalistic view that children innately learn things like walking and talking, then learn the rest of what they need to know in school. Much of popular teen media portrays parents and adults as tools to be manipulated to the teen's own ends.
Empowering parents may need to start through strengthening the Family and Consumer Science programs in our schools to thoughtfully challenge kids to consider true, functional adult roles and within that,the role of parenting.

I believe that there's not nearly enough focus on prevention in the early childhood field. There is a much improved chance to prevent or mitigate childhood trauma if parents understand their critical role in the success of their children. Prenatal education is imperative, but in order to enhance the preventive aspect, we need to begin even earlier. I'd like to see classes on relationships and parenting begin in middle school, when we might still be able to impact the thinking, and then hopefully, the behaviors of children as they move through puberty. Effective parenting needs to begin with exposure to the responsibility, challenges and hard work of parenting well before a pregnancy occurs.

Research tells us that the most important time in a baby's life is the first 30 months and that the most important relationship is with their mother/parents.
Empowering and educating parents through intensive evidenced-based home visiting has been proven to yield significant ROI through measureable reductions in child injuries, hospitalizations, and abuse.