Tap into the psychology behind your child's behavior at every stage of development, and respond with confidence.Find out what your child really means when he says "Look what I did", "But I'm not tired," or "You're embarrassing me," and discover what's really going on when he can't express himself at all.Using more than 100 everyday scenarios, the book leads you through each one step by step, explaining not only your child's behavior and the psychology behind it but also your own feelings as a parent. It then gives instant recommendations for what you could say and do in response to best resolve the situation.Covering all your child's developmental milestones from ages 2 to 7 years, What's My Child Thinking? covers important issues, such as temper tantrums, friendships (real and imaginary), sibling rivalry, aggressive behavior, and peer pressure. There's also a bank of practical "survival guides" for critical times, such as traveling in the car, eating out, and going online safely.Rooted in evidence-based clinical psychology and championing positive parenting, What's My Child Thinking? will help you tune in to your child's innermost thoughts and be the parent you want to be.

    Parent groups argued about it, bloggers, blogged, spouses became uncivil with each other, and the media jumped all over it. A lot of parents today, Skenazy says, see no difference between letting their kids walk to school and letting them walk through a firing range. Any risk is seen as too much risk. But if you try to prevent every possible danger or difficult in your child's everyday life, that child never gets a chance to grow up. We parents have to realize that the greatest risk of all just might be trying to raise a child who never encounters choice or independence.

    While parents may worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant, explicit learning or using the latest "educational" games, David Elkind's The Power of Play reassures us that unscheduled imaginative play goes far in preparing children for academic and social success. Through expert analysis of the research and powerful situational examples, Elkind shows that, indeed, creative spontaneous activity best sets the stage for academic learning in the first place: Children learn mutual respect and cooperation through role-playing and the negotiation of rules, which in turn prepare them for successful classroom learning; in simply playing with rocks, for example, a child could discover properties of counting and shapes that are the underpinnings of math; even a toddler's babbling is a necessary precursor to the acquisition of language. An important contribution to the literature about how children learn, The Power of Play suggests ways to restore play's respected place in children's lives, at home, at school, and in the larger community. In defense of unstructured "down time," it encourages parents to trust their instincts and resist the promise of the wide and dubious array of educational products on the market geared to youngsters.

    Now in its fourth edition, Honey for a Child’s Heart discusses everything from the ways reading affects both children’s view of the world and their imagination to how to choose good books. Illustrated with drawings from dozens of favorites, it includes an indexed and updated list of the best new books on the market and the classics that you want your children to enjoy. Author Gladys Hunt’s tastes are broad, her advice is rooted in experience, and her suggestions will enrich the cultural and spiritual life of any home.

    She offers deeply-held thoughts and convictions, formed out of a life of books and reading in the Clarkson household, about the mind- and soul-shaping influence of good books, reading, and the power of story on children. She writes as a twenty-six-year-old woman looking back on the many books she read growing up as the first wholehearted child in the Clarkson home and how they have shaped her life, mind, and spirit. She reviews hundreds of whole and living books for children 4-14, and includes additional lists of books to help parents choose the best literary food for their growing children's hearts and minds.

    As a RIE teacher and student of pioneering child specialist Magda Gerber, her advice is not based solely on formal studies and the research of others, but also on her twenty years of hands-on experience guiding hundreds of parents and their toddlers. “No Bad Kids” is a collection of Janet's most popular and widely read articles pertaining to common toddler behaviors and how respectful parenting practices can be applied to benefit both parents and children. It covers such common topics as punishment, cooperation, boundaries, testing, tantrums, hitting, and more. “No Bad Kids” provides a practical, indispensable tool for parents who are anticipating or experiencing those critical years when toddlers are developmentally obliged to test the limits of our patience and love. Armed with knowledge and a clearer sense of the world through our children’s eyes, this period of uncertainty can afford a myriad of opportunities to forge unbreakable bonds of trust and respect.

    The lively text includes many mini-stories of preschool and kindergarten-age children, teachers, and parents who embark on journeys of learning together. These journeys take shape in language, in drawings, in tempera paint and clay, in outdoor excursions, and in the imaginations of both the children and adults. This informative and accessible work features photographs of the children (both in Italy and the United States) and samples of the children's work, including some in full color.During the past 10 years there has been a tremendous interest among early childhood educators and parents in the innovative approaches to teaching pioneered in the preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the Reggio Approach! Teachers, especially those in early childhood, teacher educators, policy makers, administrators, and parents will find it invaluable.Selected topics: The Fundamentals of the Reggio Approach - The Pleasure and Power of Playing with Materials - Plants in Relationships - Children and Spoken Language - Transforming Space, Time, and Relations - Turning the Preschool Classroom into a Greenhouse - Taking the Plant Project to Kindergarten

    On Becoming Babywise brings hope to the tired and bewildered parents looking for an alternative to sleepless nights and fussy babies. The Babywise Parent Directed Feeding concept has enough structure to bring security and order to your baby's world, yet enough flexibility to give mom freedom to respond to any need at any time. It teaches parents how to lovingly guide their baby's day rather than be guided or enslaved to the infant's unknown needs. The information contained within On Becoming Babywise is loaded with success. Comprehensive breast-feeding follow-up surveys spanning three countries, of mothers using the PDF method verify that as a result of the PDF concepts, 88% breast-feed, compared to the national average of only 54% (from the National Center for Health Statistics). Of these breast-feeding mothers, 80% of them breast-feed exclusively without a formula complement. And while 70% of our mothers are still breast-feeding after six months, the national average encourage to follow demand feeding without any guidelines is only 20%. The mean average time of breast-feeding for PDF moms is 33 1/2 weeks, well above the national average. Over 50% of PDF mothers extend their breast-feeding toward and well into the first year. Added to these statistics is another critical factor. The average breast-fed PDF baby sleeps continuously through night seven to eight hours between weeks seven and nine. Healthy sleep in infants is analogous to healthy growth and development. Find out for yourself why a world of parents and pediatricians utilize the concepts found in On Becoming Babywise.

    It has sold over 400,000 copies, been translated into 17 languages, and sells over 25,000 every year, which is more than any other book on boys in history. To follow up on this first book, which launched the boy's movement, he has now written this revolutionary new book which confronts what he and a lot of other parents and teachers in this country truly believe to be a boy's crisis. Here are the facts: Boys today are simply not learning as well as girls Boys receive 70% of the Ds and Fs given all students Boys cause 90% of classroom discipline problems 80% of all high school dropouts are boys Millions of American boys are on Ritalin and other mind-bending control drugs Only 40% of college students are boys And three out of four learning disabled students are boys So what can we do? Gurian has the answer in this enormously fascinating and practical book which shows parents and teachers how to help boys overcome their current classroom obstacles by helping to create the proper learning environment, understand how to help boys work with their unique natural gifts, nurture and expand every bit of their potential, and enabling them to succeed in life the way they ought to.Gurian presents a whole new way of solving the problem based on the success of his program in schools across the country, the latest research and application of neuro-biological research on how boys' brains actually work and how they can learn very well if they're properly taught.Anyone who cares about the future of our boys must read this book.

    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.

    New nature games--favorites from the field--and Cornell's typically insightful commentary make the second edition of this special classic even more valuable to nature lovers world-wide. The Sharing Nature movement that Cornell pioneered has now expanded to countries all over the globe. Recommended by Boy Scouts of America, American Camping Association, National Audubon Society and many others.

    In this truly groundbreaking book, nationally respected educator Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking "What do kids need — and how can we meet those needs?" What follows from that question are ideas for working with children rather than doing things to them. One basic need all children have, Kohn argues, is to be loved unconditionally, to know that they will be accepted even if they screw up or fall short. Yet conventional approaches to parenting such as punishments (including "time-outs"), rewards (including positive reinforcement), and other forms of control teach children that they are loved only when they please us or impress us. Kohn cites a body of powerful, and largely unknown, research detailing the damage caused by leading children to believe they must earn our approval. That's precisely the message children derive from common discipline techniques, even though it's not the message most parents intend to send. More than just another book about discipline, though, Unconditional Parenting addresses the ways parents think about, feel about, and act with their children. It invites them to question their most basic assumptions about raising kids while offering a wealth of practical strategies for shifting from "doing to" to "working with" parenting — including how to replace praise with the unconditional support that children need to grow into healthy, caring, responsible people. This is an eye-opening, paradigm-shattering book that will reconnect readers to their own best instincts and inspire them to become better parents.

    But how? More homework? Better-qualified teachers? Longer school days or school years? More testing? More funding? No, no, no, no, and no. Montessori Madness! explains why the incremental steps politicians and administrators continue to propose are incremental steps in the wrong direction. The entire system must be turned on its head. This book asks parents to take a look one thirty-minute observation at a Montessori school. Your picture of what education should look like will never be the same. Montessori Madness! follows one family with young children on their journey of determination, discovery, and delight. Learn the who, what, when, where, why, and how of Montessori education. This book makes an aggressive, humorous, and passionate case for a brilliant method of education that has received too little attention, very likely because it is based on a revolutionary, dangerous, and shocking concept: children love to learn!

    For others, it's a boring, stressful, and frustrating waste of time. If your child is in the second category, why keep tormenting them? Instead, why not help them find an educational environment where they feel genuinely motivated, excited, and empowered?In this eye-opening book, Blake Boles makes the case for leaving conventional school and taking one of the many alternative paths through K-12 that exist today. He addresses parents' major concerns about unconventional education—Can my kids still go to college? Will they still be employable? How will they learn to work hard?—while highlighting the hidden benefits of self-directed learning, such as improved parent-child relationships, a more balanced decision-making process regarding college, and a heightened sense of autonomy and connection.Drawing upon 15 years of work as a mentor and guide for adolescents in alternative and experiential learning environments—as well as his own unconventional life path—Boles weaves together narrative, theory, and research to build a powerful argument for granting children unusual levels of freedom and responsibility.

    They experiment, explore, test, and play, and they learn a great deal about problem-solving through questions and hands-on experiments. They don't see lines between disciplines; rather, they notice interesting materials and ideas that are worth exploring. This book is about creative experiments, in all fields, that help kids explore the world.Children gravitate toward sensory experiences (playing with slime), figuring out how things work (taking toys apart), and testing the limits of materials (mixing a tray of paint together until it makes a solid mass of brown). They're not limited by their imaginations, and a wooden spoon can become a magic wand as quickly as a bag of pom-poms can become a hot bowl of soup. This book is about helping parents and teachers of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers understand and tap into this natural energy with engaging, kid-tested, easy-to-implement projects that value process over product. The creative experiments shared in this book foster curiosity, promote creative and critical thinking, and encourage tinkering--mindsets that are important to children growing up in a world that values independent thinking.In addition to offering a host of activities that parents and teachers can put to use right away, this book also includes a buffet of recipes (magic potions, different kinds of play dough, silly putty, and homemade butter) and a detailed list of materials to include in the art pantry.