This book explores how psychoanalytic principles can be applied when working with parents and toddlers in groups. It demonstrates the particular challenges of the toddler phase and its contribution to an individual's future development and relationships.

Klein argues that adult success is often established in the developmental preschool years. She shares advice for parents on how to promote such success-driving positive attributes as resilience, self-regulation, and empathy.

Why does your toddler get upset when his or her routine is disrupted? Why do they follow you from room to room and refuse to play on their own? Why are daily routines such as mealtimes, bath time, and bed time such a struggle? This accessible guide demystifies the difficult behaviors of anxious toddlers, offering tried-and-tested practical solutions to common parenting dilemmas. Each chapter begins with a real life example, clearly illustrating the behavior from the parent's and the toddler's perspective. Once the toddler's anxious behavior has been demystified and explained, new and effective parenting approaches are introduced to help parents tackle everyday difficulties and build up their child's resilience, independence, and coping mechanisms. Common difficulties with bath time, toileting, sleep, eating, transitions, social anxiety, separation anxiety, and sensory issues are solved, along with specific fears and phobias, and more extreme behaviors such as skin picking and hair pulling. A must-read for all parents of anxious toddlers, as well as for the professionals involved in supporting them.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

When you’re a new parent, the miracle of life might not always feel so miraculous. Maybe your latest 2:00 a.m., 2:45 a.m., and 3:30 a.m. wake-up calls have left you wondering how “sleep like a baby” ever became a figure of speech—and what the options are for restoring your sanity. Or your child just left bite marks on someone, and you’re wondering how to handle it. First-time mom Tracy Cutchlow knows what you’re going through. In Zero to Five: 70 Essential Parenting Tips Based on Science (and What I’ve Learned So Far), she takes dozens of parenting tips based on scientific research and distills them into something you can easily digest during one of your two-minute-long breaks in the day. The pages are beautifully illustrated by award-winning photojournalist Betty Udesen. Combining the warmth of a best friend with a straightforward style, Tracy addresses questions such as: Should I talk to my pregnant belly / newborn? Is that going to feel weird? (Yes, and absolutely.) How do I help baby sleep well? (Start with the 45-minute rule.) How can I instill a love of learning in my child? (By using specific types of praise and criticism.) What will boost my child’s success in school? (Play that requires self-control, like make-believe.) My baby loves videos and cell-phone games. That’s cool, right? (If you play, too.) What tamps down temper tantrums? (Naming emotions out loud.) My sweet baby just hit a playmate / lied to me about un-potting the plant / talked back. Now what? (Choose one of three logical consequences.) How do I get through an entire day of this? (With help. Lots of help.) Who knew babies were so funny? (They are!) Whether you read the book front to back or skip around, Zero to Five will help you make the best of the tantrums (yours and baby’s), moments of pure joy, and other surprises along the totally-worth-it journey of parenting.

This book explores how psychoanalytic principles can be applied when working with parents and toddlers in groups. Illustrated with lively observations, it discusses how these parent-toddler groups can be an effective medium for early intervention during a period which is critical for the negotiation of a child’s central emotional issues. Parents and Toddlers in Groups demonstrates the particular challenges of the toddler phase and its contribution to an individual’s future development and relationships. Focusing on an approach developed by the Anna Freud Centre and comprising chapters from a range of expert contributors, topics include: the history, theory and practice of parent-toddler groups at the Anna Freud Centre how this approach has been adapted and applied across a wide range of settings and cultures the findings of research projects carried out on parent-toddler groups. This book will be a valuable resource for practitioners wanting to reach parents and young children in community, educational and a variety of other settings. It will also appeal to child psychotherapists and psychologists working in CAMHS teams.

This publication deals with the present crisis in infant/toddler care. It presents information on infant/toddler development and optimal caregiving paractices, citing recent research on appropriate practices and the impact of poor versus quality care. The book is divided into two sections. In the first section, "Development and Program Implications for Infants, Toddlers and Families," four chapters cover: (1) "The Baby: Birth to 12 Months" (Alice Sterling Honig); (2) "The Second Year: 12 to 24 Months" (Kathryn Castle); (3) "Toddlers: 24 to 36 Months" (Nancy Balaban); and (4) "Quality Integrated Programs for Infants and Toddlers with Special Needs" (David Sexton). The chapters in the second section, "Issues and Dilemmas Confronting Infants, Toddlers and Families," deal with: (5)"Health Issues in a Changing Society" (Veronica D. Feeg); (6) "Infant Day Care" (Michael F. Kelley and Elaine Surbeck); and (7) "Policy Issues Affecting Infants, Toddlers and Their Families" (Eleanor Stokes Szanton). A postscript by Elaine Surbeck concludes the volume. (JD)

Helps care-givers, program directors, coordinators, administrators, trainers, licensors, families, and leaders in the field of early care and education to recognize the special knowledge and skills needed to offer a nurturing group care environment to very young children.

Children are born into a social context that is not of their choosing. From early childhood, this context is made up of diverse group experiences that play a crucial role in shaping a person's social life and desire to learn. This makes the group context an ideal setting for therapeutic and educational work, especially with children and adolescents. This volume offers numerous practical suggestions for using the group as a helpful and supportive medium, e.g., in parent-infant/toddler groups, parent/caregiver groups, groups with children or adolescents, and in preventive group work in schools. The contributions provide insights into the diversity and complexity of conceptual, group analytic work with children's, youth and parents' groups, and show how this work can be successful in outpatient settings, clinics, youth services, counseling centers, or schools. The combination of basic and applied knowledge makes this anthology an indispensable reference for any practitioner. With contributions by Andreas Opitz, Anke Mühle, Birgitt Ballhausen-Scharf, Dietrich Winzer, Hans Georg Lehle, Christoph Müller, Beate Schnabel, Anja Khalil, Carla Weber, Christoph Radaj, Dietlind, Köhncke, Franziska Schöpfer, Furi Kharbirpour, Gerhild Ohrnberger, Harald Weilnböck, Horst Wenzel, Kadir Kaynak, Matthias Wenck, Thomas Schneider, Tilman Sprondel, Ursula Pröbsting.