Wise advice on how parents can escape the "superbaby syndrome," a rampant phenomenon afflicting parents with the anxious need to fill their child's life with purposeful, goal-oriented activity.

With the baby boom generation came the genre of parenting books that told parents how to teach their kids everything from toilet training to developing self-esteem. Generally the message has been: go easy on your child, but hard on yourself. It is starting to become apparent, especially in the best of families, that giving your kids lots of choices, validating their feelings at great peril to your own and providing "enough" individual attention for each child is creating a generation of kids over whom we have no control. Cassidy argues that this comes from over-thinking our role as parents. We've pondered every step so much that the juice, the joy, and worst of all, our confidence is gone. The reasons are clear: We have fewer children later in life so we've had more time to ponder. We've grown up just as research on infant and child development has come of age, so there's no shortage of material to think about. As a generation we've prided ourselves on self-improvement and we bring the same zeal to child improvement. We're less likely to live close to our families, and so are more likely to seek out expert solutions. To counter this thinking, Cassidy will suggest keeping the big picture in mind--what kind of people do you really want your kids to be? Honest, kind, cooperative, empathetic? It may mean losing sight of whether enough play dates are scheduled for the week and if you've positively reinforced the latest creative endeavor, but it will bring back your instincts about what is important to your family as a whole, and to your kids to become decent people.

One of developmental psychology's central concerns is the identification of specific "milestones" which indicate what children are typically capable of doing at different ages. Work of this kind has a substantial impact on the way parents, educators, and service-oriented professionals deal with children; and, therefore one might expect that developmentalists would have come to some general agreement in regard to the ways they assess children's abilities. However, as this volume demonstrates, the field appears to suffer from a serious lack of consensus in this area. Based on the premise that identifying relevant issues is a necessary step toward progress, this book addresses a number of vital topics, such as: How could research into fundamental areas (such as the age at which children first acquire a sense of self or learn to reason transitively) repeatedly yield wildly diverse results? Why do experts who hold to radically different views appear to be so unruffled by this same divergence of professional opinion? and, Are there grounds for hope that this divergence of professional opinion is on the wane?

The first book in America to popularize the insights of Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf schools, regarding the developmental needs of young children, this revised and updated edition offers new ways for parents and educators to enrich the lives of children from birth to age six. Today’s society often pressures us into overstimulating young children with flashcards, workbooks, videos, and electronic gadgets in a well-meaning attempt to give them a head start. But children are not little adults—they learn and grow in radically different ways at different ages, and what we do to help could actually hurt instead. Some of the most important learning years happen before your child reaches school. In You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, respected Waldorf educator Rahima Baldwin Dancy explains the different stages of learning that children go through from birth to age six, giving you the wisdom and understanding to enrich your child’s natural development in the right way at the right time. A trusted classic for over twenty years, this newly revised edition contains updated resources and additional information on discipline, early childhood programs, toilet training, using home life as curriculum, and more. From language and cognitive development to appropriate toys and nourishing your child’s artistic abilities, Dancy speaks up for a rational approach to child-rearing, one that helps children be children while we fulfill our important role as parents and first teachers.

A feminist perspective on the early history of personal computing, revealing how computers were integrated into the most intimate aspects of family life The Intimate Life of Computers shows how the widespread introduction of home computers in the 1980s was purposefully geared toward helping sustain heteronormative middle-class families by shaping relationships between users. Moving beyond the story of male-dominated computer culture, this book emphasizes the neglected history of the influence of women’s culture and feminist critique on the development of personal computing despite women’s underrepresentation in the industry. Proposing the notion of “companionate computing,” Reem Hilu reimagines the spread of computers into American homes as the history of an interpersonal, romantic, and familial medium. She details the integration of computing into family relationships—from helping couples have better sex and offering thoughtful simulations of masculine seduction to animating cute robot companions and giving voice to dolls that could talk to lonely children—underscoring how these computer applications directly responded to the companionate needs of their users as a way to ease growing pressures on home life. The Intimate Life of Computers is a vital contribution to feminist media history, highlighting how the emergence of personal computing dovetailed with changing gender roles and other social and cultural shifts. Eschewing the emphasis on technologies and institutions typically foregrounded in personal-computer histories, Hilu uncovers the surprising ways that domesticity and family life guided the earlier stages of our all-pervasive digital culture.

CAN PARENTS AVOID THE OVERACHIEVEMENT TRAP AND STILL RAISE SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN? In America's hypercompetitive culture, children are being suffocated by our quest to make them the best. As competitive parenting has been on the rise since the 1980s, so have rates of teen suicide, eating disorders, depression, and drug use. Yet the cycle of "push parenting" doesn’t show signs of slowing down. Our children today are competing with classmates who began listening to Mozart in utero and were enrolled in educational classes at the ages of two and three. Under these circumstances, parents feel that they cannot afford to opt out. No More Push Parenting offers solutions for parents caught up by the need to push their children to the top, those parents who don't want to push but worry that their children may not measure up. With her fifteen-plus years of clinical experience, Dr. Elisabeth Guthrie provides targeted, prescriptive alternatives to the problem of push parenting, supported by the illustrative case studies of real children who are and aren't succeeding--and why. She explores the ways in which children are hindered emotionally and intellectually by the pressure to succeed that they often feel from parents on a daily basis. Helping parents discover the fine line between good parenting and pressure parenting, Dr. Guthrie provides them with the permission to do less pushing without sacrificing their ideals for their children, and offers techniques that they can use to deflect the pressure to push while still providing healthy encouragement. With tips for enhancing the development of every child's unique set of talents, the book is a vital reality check for anyone concerned about what's really best for kids.

This book vividly encapsulates the absurdities, heartbreaks, and possibilities of contemporary child rearing. The book shows how parents today are all too often caught up in a guilt-driven pendulum swing between parenting too little and parenting too much. Dr. Ehrensaft suggests innovative ways to overcome the treacherous balancing acts of work and family demands. She invites us to replace perfect parenting with 'good-enough, ' trade harriedness for harmony, and give our children a healthier environment in which to grow.

A completely revised and updated edition of the best-selling "Super Baby Food"! Parents know that you get only one shot to feed your baby right and Ruth Yaron has been helping parents get it right for over 15 years. Ruth's book, "Super Baby Food", is affectionately referred to as the baby food bible by over half a million parents world-wide because it literally contains everything you will ever need to know about feeding a baby and toddler. It features, for example, a very special type of baby cereal she calls Super Porridge. This is definitely not your mom's powdered white rice baby cereal. We are talking about organic, whole grains and legumes, blended and boiled at home with a bit of nutritional yeast and/or tahini sprinkled in for an extra nutritious touch. Sound like too much hassle? Ruth makes it simple and that's just one reason it is truly Super Baby Food! The new edition is filled with the same sound guidance the book has always had, and supplemented with the latest advice from the experts, including the USDA MyPlate and American Academy of Pediatricians recommendations. The book is filled with new recipes, new resources, and ways to connect with rapidly growing Super Baby Food communities online, all in an easy-to-navigate format.

Argues that since black children grow up in a distinct culture, they require 'an educational system that recognizes their strengths, their abilities, and their culture, and that incorporates them into the learning process'. -- Washington Post