Your stress response system determines every day whether you thrive or die. Yet how well do you or your doctor know how this orchestra of organs works? It’s effortless when we’re healthy and a mysterious struggle when we’re sick. What is good, tolerable, or toxic stress for you may be different for me. Why is toxic stress such a blind spot for modern medicine? This chapter raises the key questions addressed by this book and points to some of the answers.

How big a problem is toxic stress in our own culture and around the world? Any way we measure it, toxic stress is a problem for about one in five of us. Most of us don’t know if we’re at risk for stress-related illnesses. And measurement is not easy, as Ted Daley’s experience shows us, pointing to one reason we overlook toxic stress. Teresa Langford’s story weaves throughout this book to show how toxic stress has erupted at key points in her life, suggesting lessons for the rest of us.

An influential approach to public communication focuses on changing the preexisting frames of understanding the public brings to issues or introducing new frames to strengthen message acceptance. This chapter explores this approach to communicating developmental science in the work of the FrameWorks Institute together with the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. The application of “strategic frame analysis” is described to show how an influential messaging strategy was developed by FrameWorks, and the example of framing child mental health illustrates this process. Questions are raised about this approach, including how to define the target audience(s) and the media that influence them, balancing scientific accuracy and policy advocacy in the communication goal(s), and whether there are long-term effects of FrameWorks messaging. The work of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child is profiled as an implementation of strategic frame analysis to communicating developmental science. The development of the core story of early childhood development and the use of metaphors such as toxic stress, serve and return, and brain architecture are discussed. The chapter concludes with questions and cautions about the framing of developmental science and the influence of values in science communication.