We must ask ourselves how to create services that generate long-term impact. It is impossible to do it without devoting energy to the lives of parents. Isn't it pretty hypocritical and lacking in common sense to advocate strongly for a mother's prenatal care and then, immediately after birth, shift focus to exclusive care of newborns? Who brings those kids in for appointments? What about their future health? The health of any kids they may have later on? Through their children, hospitals can reach these mothers, whether or not they're adolescents.

That's why the teen and tot clinic is such a good idea; one physician sees the mother and child together until the child is five years old. If we can all acknowledge the great impact of the family on childhood development, we need to take every opportunity to work with the family unit as a whole and create services that understand these connections.

My mentee's mom (like almost every parent) and I have the common goal of enabling her daughter to grow into an amazing young adult: this is how we have been able to develop a relationship over the past two years. It's our responsibility as volunteers to consider the parent a source of wisdom about the six and a half days a week we're not there. To listen, ask questions, and share with parents the specific strengths and weaknesses of the kids we get to know. To visit and call when there aren't discipline problems, when there's no motivation besides a chance to hear a story.

Similarly, parents and doctors can reach joint decisions to affect the kid's health, whether that involves quitting smoking or reading aloud a book each night. Framing both within the child's medical visit creates a sense of shared purpose, and capitalizes on the opportunity to create family-based solutions that can prevent future health concerns.

Those shared moments, at the hospital or an apartment in Dorchester, make it possible to foster the kids' ability to grow and change and benefit once that doctor changes hospitals and I graduate and move away, while, like every morning, the child's mom's still there. Ultimately, what greater goal can we work toward achieving?

Tiger Edwards '01 is a psychology concentrator in Winthrop House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.