In the first article of this series, "Taking Stock: Is Personal Grief the Invisible Companion Informing How You Show Up?" in January 2026, we explored how personal grief can become an “invisible companion,” shaping the inner landscape of how we show up as caregivers and leaders. In the second "What’s at Stake? Professional Loss and Grief in Early Care and Education Workplaces" in March 2026, we widened the lens to the workplace, naming grief as pervasive in early care and education—often unspoken, often misread as burnout, disengagement, or poor performance. We also argued for grief literacy and for structures that allow people to feel seen, supported, and witnessed as they move through loss.

This final article expands the lens one more time: beyond the individual and the workplace, to the societal and systemic conditions that create, distribute, and intensify grief in the communities we serve. These conditions are shaped and amplified by Adverse Community Experiences, including chronic poverty and unemployment, disinvestment and gentrification, forced displacement, and the erosion of cultural anchors. Inequitable access to safe housing, reliable transportation, healthcare, and early learning; exposure to environmental hazards; community violence and threats of harm; immigration enforcement policies that create fear and unpredictability; and systems of over‑policing or under‑protection all form the backdrop of daily life. Collective trauma from domestic terrorism, hate crimes, and political instability to repeated community loss further deepens the weight children and caregivers carry.

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Finally, the book explores ideas for teaching young children who are twice-exceptional: GT students with delays/disabilities, and children with delays/disabilities who are also GT.

The Eugenics Movement

Before discussing exceptional children, we need to examine our history involving people with delays/disabilities, and giftedness. This history revolves around the eugenics movement, from the late 1800s to mid-1900s. This movement grew from the creation of the IQ test. Alfred Binet developed the IQ test in France to help identify children who could benefit from additional and targeted assistance. However, after these tests came to the US, they were adapted and used to sort people by intelligence. Children were classified as gifted, normal, and feeble-minded (low IQ). Military recruits were tested using the Army Alpha and Beta Intelligence Tests.

Results of these tests were then used to “improve the race.” Children and people with low IQs—mostly immigrant, poor and minority people and children—were sterilized and institutionalized; results of the Alpha and Beta tests were used to “prove the intellectual superiority of White soldiers.” The eugenics movement was fully embraced by the national medical, educational, political and criminal justice institutions in both the US and Britain.