Book picks similar to
Ages and Stages: A Parent's Guide to Normal Childhood Development by Charles E. Schaefer
parenting
nonfiction
non-fiction
reference
Raising Worry-Free Girls: Helping Your Daughter Feel Braver, Stronger, and Smarter in an Anxious World
Sissy Goff - 2019
For a variety of reasons, childhood anxiety rates are soaring, especially among girls. Today's parents need to know what contributes to anxiety and worry and how they can empower their daughters to overcome troubling emotions.In this immensely practical book, veteran counselor Sissy Goff shares how you can instill bravery and strength in your daughter. Addressing common age-specific issues, Goff gives you the tools to help you and your child understand why her brain is often working against her when she starts to worry, and what she can do to fight back. With your help, she will find the anchoring truth of God's strong, safe love for her and the confidence she needs to thrive.
The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids
Sarah Mackenzie - 2018
Reading aloud offers us a chance to be fully present with our children. It also increases our kids’ academic success, inspires compassion, and fortifies them with the inner strength they need to face life’s challenges. As Sarah Mackenzie has found with her own six children, reading aloud long after kids are able to read to themselves can deepen relationships in a powerful way.Founder of the immensely popular Read-Aloud Revival podcast, Sarah knows first-hand how reading can change a child’s life. In The Read-Aloud Family, she offers the inspiration and age-appropriate book lists you need to start a read-aloud movement in your own home. From a toddler’s wonder to a teenager’s resistance, Sarah details practical strategies to make reading aloud a meaningful family ritual. Reading aloud not only has the power to change a family—it has the power to change the world.
Mindful Parenting: Simple and Powerful Solutions for Raising Creative, Engaged, Happy Kids in Today’s Hectic World
Kristen Race - 2013
Race calls "Generation Stress." Research has shown that mindfulness practices stimulate the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Regular stimulation of this part of the brain helps us feel happier, healthier, calmer, less anxious, less stressed, and makes it easier for us to concentrate and think clearly—the very behavior we are hoping our children will display.Dr. Race provides:An explanation of the way the brain works and why parents and kids today are more stressed, anxious, and angry than ever beforePractical solutions to the problem: Things parents can do to change brain patterns and create a more relaxed and happier home"Brain Coolers": Quick tips that can be used in the moment to help families relax, recharge, and create happiness (such as "The Three Breath Hug")Mindful Parenting understands the realities of raising a family in our fast paced and often-frenetic world and provides hundreds of easy-to-implement solutions, both for parents and their children, to help them manage stress, create peace, and live happier lives.
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
Paul Tough - 2012
Drawing on groundbreaking research in neuroscience, economics, and psychology, Tough shows that the qualities that matter most have less to do with IQ and more to do with character: skills like grit, curiosity, conscientiousness, and optimism."How Children Succeed" introduces us to a new generation of scientists and educators who are radically changing our understanding of how children develop character, how they learn to think, and how they overcome adversity. It tells the personal stories of young people struggling to stay on the right side of the line between success and failure. And it argues for a new way of thinking about how best to steer an individual child – or a whole generation of children – toward a successful future.This provocative and profoundly hopeful book will not only inspire and engage readers; it will also change our understanding of childhood itself.
It's OK Not to Share and Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids
Heather Shumaker - 2012
In this inspiring and enlightening book, Heather Shumaker describes her quest to nail down “the rules” to raising smart, sensitive, and self-sufficient kids. Drawing on her own experiences as the mother of two small children, as well as on the work of child psychologists, pediatricians, educators and so on, in this book Shumaker gets to the heart of the matter on a host of important questions. Hint: many of the rules aren’t what you think they are!The “rules” in this book focus on the toddler and preschool years—an important time for laying the foundation for competent and compassionate older kids and then adults. Here are a few of the rules: • It’s OK if it’s not hurting people or property • Bombs, guns and bad guys allowed. • Boys can wear tutus. • Pictures don’t have to be pretty. • Paint off the paper! • Sex ed starts in preschool • Kids don’t have to say “Sorry.” • Love your kid’s lies. IT’S OK NOT TO SHARE is an essential resource for any parent hoping to avoid PLAYDATEGATE (i.e. your child’s behavior in a social interaction with another child clearly doesn’t meet with another parent’s approval)!
The Late Talker: What to Do If Your Child Isn't Talking Yet
Marilyn C. Agin - 2003
For millions of mothers and fathers, however, anticipation turns to anxiety when those initial, all-important words are a long time coming. Many worried parents are reassured that their child is just a late talker, but unfortunately, all too often that is not the case. Nineteen million children in the United States have serious speech disorders, such as apraxia of speech. For these toddlers, early and intensive speech therapy is crucial if they are to stand a chance of ever speaking normally. This book was written to help the worried parent cut through the confusion and stress to determine if their child needs help.The Late Talker is the first book of its kind, providing effective, practical answers to the questions every concerned parent asks. Written by Marilyn C. Agin, a highly respected developmental pediatrician, and Lisa F. Geng, a mother of two late talkers, it is a tremendously useful handbook that includes:- Ways to identify the warning signs of a speech disorder- Information on how to get the right kind of evaluations and therapy- Ways to obtain appropriate services through the school system and health insurance - Fun at-home activities that parents can do with their child to stimulate speech- Groundbreaking evidence of the promising and dramatic benefits of nutritional supplementation- Advice from experienced parents who've been there on what to expect and what you can do to be your child's best advocate
The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive
W. Thomas Boyce - 2019
In Tom Boyce's extraordinary new book, he explores the "dandelion" child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the "orchid" child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile), who, given the right support, can thrive as much as, if not more than, other children. Boyce writes of his pathfinding research as a developmental pediatrician working with troubled children in child-development research for almost four decades, and explores his major discovery that reveals how genetic make-up and environment shape behavior. He writes that certain variant genes can increase a person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors. But rather than seeing this "risk" gene as a liability, Boyce, through his daring research, has recast the way we think of human frailty, and has shown that while these "bad" genes can create problems, they can also, in the right setting and the right environment, result in producing children who not only do better than before but far exceed their peers. Orchid children, Boyce makes clear, are not failed dandelions; they are a different category of child, with special sensitivities and strengths, and need to be nurtured and taught in special ways. And in The Orchid and the Dandelion, Boyce shows us how to understand these children for their unique sensibilities, their considerable challenges, their remarkable gifts.
Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food
Gill Rapley - 2008
It shows parents why baby-led weaning makes sense and gives them the confidence to trust their baby's natural skills and instincts. Filled with practical tips for getting started and the low-down on what to expect, Baby-led Weaning explodes the myth that babies need to be spoon-fed and shows why self-feeding from the start is the healthiest way for your child to develop. Your baby is allowed to decide how much they want to eat, how to eat it and to experiment with everything at their own pace. Baby-led weaning is a common-sense, safe, easy and enjoyable approach to feeding your baby. No more purées and weaning spoons, and no more mealtime battles. Simply let your baby feed himself healthy family food.
Why Do They Act That Way?: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen
David Walsh - 2004
David Walsh explains exactly what happens to the human brain on the path from childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Revealing the latest scientific findings in easy-to-understand terms, Dr. Walsh shows why moodiness, quickness to anger and to take risks, miscommunication, fatigue, territoriality, and other familiar teenage behavior problems are so common -- all are linked to physical changes and growth in the adolescent brain. Why Do They Act That Way? is the first book to explain the changes in teens' brains and show parents how to use this information to understand, communicate with, and stay connected to their kids. Through real-life stories, Dr. Walsh makes sense of teenagers' many mystifying, annoying, and even outright dangerous behavioral difficulties and provides realistic solutions for dealing with everyday as well as severe challenges. Dr. Walsh's techniques include, among others: sample dialogues that help teens and parents talk civilly and constructively with each other, behavioral contracts, and Parental Survival Kits that provide practical advice for dealing with issues like curfews, disrespectful language and actions, and bullying. With this arsenal of strategies, parents can help their kids learn to control impulses, manage erratic behavior, cope with their changing bodies, and, in effect, develop a second brain.
The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children
Alison Gopnik - 2016
Yet the thing we call "parenting" is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the multibillion dollar industry surrounding it have transformed child care into obsessive, controlling, and goal-oriented labor intended to create a particular kind of child and therefore a particular kind of adult. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong--it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for kids and parents, too.Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. “Parenting" won't make children learn—but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment.
The Baby Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips & Advice on First-Year Maintenance
Louis Borgenicht - 2003
But none of this experience will prepare you for the world’s biggest technological marvel: a newborn baby. Through step-by-step instructions and helpful schematic diagrams, The Baby Owner’s Manual explores hundreds of frequently asked questions: What’s the best way to swaddle a baby? How can I make my newborn sleep through the night? When should I bring the baby to a doctor for servicing? Whatever your concerns, you’ll find the answers here—courtesy of celebrated pediatrician Dr. Louis Borgenicht and his son, Joe Borgenicht. Together, they provide plenty of useful advice for anyone who wants to learn the basics of childcare.
Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential--and Endangered
Bruce D. Perry - 2009
Perry and award-winning science journalist Maia Szalavitz interweave research and stories from Perry's practice with cutting-edge scientific studies and historical examples to explain how empathy develops, why it is essential for our development into healthy adults, and how it is threatened in the modern world.Perry and Szalavitz show that compassion underlies the qualities that make society work—trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity—and how difficulties related to empathy are key factors in social problems such as war, crime, racism, and mental illness. Even physical health, from infectious diseases to heart attacks, is deeply affected by our human connections to one another.As Born for Love reveals, recent changes in technology, child-rearing practices, education, and lifestyles are starting to rob children of necessary human contact and deep relationships—the essential foundation for empathy and a caring, healthy society. Sounding an important warning bell, Born for Love offers practical ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and fostering positive social change to benefit us all.
Discover Your Child's Learning Style: Children Learn in Unique Ways - Here's the Key to Every Child's Learning Success
Mariaemma Willis - 1999
What works best for one child is often counterproductive for others. By trying to force all children into the same learning mode we unfairly short-circuit their education as well as their intellectual development.
Discover Your Child's Learning Style
shows you how to assess and nurture your child's individual learning potential based on his or her talents, interests, disposition, preferred environment, and more. Inside is a step-by-step program of self-awareness tests that guide you to a better understanding of your child's unique strengths and weaknesses, goals and interests, and inner peace. You'll discover how to create the right atmosphere for learning in the home. Most important, you'll help your child excel not only in school but in life as well. "An excellent tool for discovering how a student learns best. Teaching children according to how they learn ensures optimum education for all; it's an approach that could help make remedial literacy programs obsolete!"—Patricia Flanigan, California State Library Literacy Task Force "Essential for any parent or teacher who works with children."—Suzanne Lopez, psychotherapist and author of Get Smart with Your Heart "A powerful tool for increasing your child's self-esteem. At last, there is a simple solution for every child to become a winner."—Nancy L. Chaconas, M.A., educator, author of HELP-Esteem "Parents who understand the principles in this book will be better parents!"—Richard and Linda Eyre, authors of Teaching Your Children Values
Escaping the Endless Adolescence: How We Can Help Our Teenagers Grow Up Before They Grow Old
Claudia Worrell Allen - 2009
Recent studies show that today’s teenagers are more anxious and stressed and less independent and motivated to grow up than ever before. Twenty-five is rapidly becoming the new fifteen for a generation suffering from a debilitating “failure to launch.” Now two preeminent clinical psychologists tell us why and chart a groundbreaking escape route for teens and parents.Drawing on their extensive research and practice, Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen show that most teen problems are not hardwired into teens’ brains and hormones but grow instead out of a “Nurture Paradox” in which our efforts to support our teens by shielding them from the growth-spurring rigors and rewards of the adult world have backfired badly. With compelling examples and practical and profound suggestions, the authors outline a novel approach for producing dramatic leaps forward in teen maturity, including• Turn Consumers into Contributors Help teens experience adult maturity–its bumps and its joys–through the right kind of employment or volunteer activity.• Feed Them with Feedback Let teens see and hear how the larger world perceives them. Shielding them from criticism–constructive or otherwise–will only leave them unequipped to deal with it when they get to the “real world.”• Provide Adult Connections Even though they’ll deny it, teens desperately need to interact with adults (including parents) on a more mature level–and such interaction will help them blossom!• Stretch the Teen Envelope Do fewer things for teens that they can do for themselves, and give them tasks just beyond their current level of competence and comfort. Today’s teens are starved for the lost fundamentals they need to really grow: adult connections and the adult rewards of autonomy, competence, and mastery. Restoring these will help them unlearn their adolescent helplessness and grow into adults who can make you–and themselves–proud.
The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity
Nadine Burke Harris - 2018
Nadine Burke Harris was already known as a crusading physician delivering targeted care to vulnerable children. But it was Diego — a boy who had stopped growing after a sexual assault — who galvanized her journey to uncover the connections between toxic stress and lifelong illnesses.The news of Burke Harris’s research is just how deeply our bodies can be imprinted by ACEs—adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, and divorce. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems, and lasts a lifetime. For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do, the scientific insight and innovative, acclaimed health interventions in The Deepest Well represent hope for preventing lifelong illness for those we love and for generations to come.