Amy Rubin, the seven-year-old daughter of one of this volume's editors, was discussing with her close friend Kristin,. her teacher's practice of distributing stickers to her classmates for completing their seat work. As the conversation continued, Joshua, Amy's two-year-old brother (al though Amy would argue that he more often resembles an albatross around her neck) sauntered up to the older children. He flashed a broad smile, hugged his sister, and then grabbed her book of stickers. Corey Ross, the nine-year-old son of the other editor was trying to plan a tobogganing party with his friend Claire. The problem facing Corey and Claire was that there were too few toboggans to go around for their grade four classmates. Jordan, Corey's younger brother had agreed to lend his toboggan. However, Harriet, Claire's younger sister and Jordan's close friend had resisted all persuasive attempts to borrow her toboggan. The older children decided that the best strategy was to use Jordan's friendship with Harriet and his good example of sibling generosity in presenting thejr case to Harriet. Both of these anecdotes exemplify what this volume on peer relation ships and social skills is about. Children have friends with whom they discuss issues of perceived social significance. During the early elemen tary school years, rather sophisticated conversations and debates con cerning topics of reward distribution, altruism, person perception, social status, sibling relations, and cooperation can be overheard (especially by eavesdropping parents who have professional interests in such matters).

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

An important component of Division TEACCH's mandate from the Department of Psychiatry of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the North Carolina State Legislature is to conduct research aimed toward improving the understanding of developmental disabilities such as autism and to train the professionals who will be needed to work with this challenging population. An important mechanism to help meet these goals is our annual conference on topics of special importance for the understanding and treatment of autism and related disorders. As with the preceding books in this series entitled Current Issues in Autism, this most recent volume is based on one of these conferences. The books are not, however, simply published proceedings of conference papers. Instead, cer tain conference participants were asked to develop chapters around their pres entations, and other national and intemational experts whose work is beyond the scope of the conference but related to the conference theme were asked to contribute manuscripts as weil. These volumes are intended to provide the most current knowledge and professional practice available to us at this time.

This book examines the role of peer relationships in child and adolescent development by tracking research findings from the early 1900s to the present. Dividing the research into three generations, the book describes what has been learned about children's peer relations and how children's participation in peer relationships contributes to their health, adjustment, and achievement. Gary W. Ladd reviews and interprets the investigative focus and findings of distinct research eras to highlight theoretical or empirical breakthroughs in the study of children's peer relations and social competence over the last century. He also discusses how this information is relevant to understanding and promoting children's health and development. In a final chapter, the author appraises the major discoveries that have emerged during the three research generations and analyzes recent scientific agendas and discoveries in the peer relations discipline.

A psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues joins forces with a physician and bestselling author to tackle one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time -- peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation, which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity, in tragedies such as in Littleton, Colorado; Tabor, Alberta and Victoria, B.C. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident -- as do the solutions. Hold On to Your Kids will restore parenting to its natural intuitive basis and the parent-child relationship to its rightful preeminence. The concepts, principles and practical advice contained in Hold On to Your Kids will empower parents to satisfy their children’s inborn need to find direction by turning towards a source of authority, contact and warmth. Something has changed. One can sense it, one can feel it, just not find the words for it. Children are not quite the same as we remember being. They seem less likely to take their cues from adults, less inclined to please those in charge, less afraid of getting into trouble. Parenting, too, seems to have changed. Our parents seemed more confident, more certain of themselves and had more impact on us, for better or for worse. For many, parenting does not feel natural. Adults through the ages have complained about children being less respectful of their elders and more difficult to manage than preceding generations, but could it be that this time it is for real? -- from Hold On to Your Kids

Willard W. Hartup This volume amounts to an anniversary collection: It was 50 years ago that Lois Jack (1934) published the findings from what most investigators consider to be the first intervention study in this area. The experiment (later replicated and extended by Marjorie Page, 1936, and Gertrude Chittenden, 1942) concerned ascendant behavior in preschool children, which was defined to include: (a) The pursuit of one's own purposes against interference and (b) directing the behavior of others. Individual differences in ascendance were assumed to have some stability across time and, hence, to be important in personality development. But ascendance variations were also viewed as a function of the immediate situation. Among the conditions assumed to determine ascendance were "the individual's status in the group as expressed in others' attitudes toward him, his conception of these attitudes, and his previously formed social habits" (Jack, 1934, p. 10). Dr. Jack's main interest was to show that nonascendant children, identified on the basis of observations in the laboratory with another child, were different from their more ascendant companions in one important respect: They lacked self confidence. And, having demonstrated that, Dr. Jack devised a procedure for teaching the knowledge and skill to nonascendant children that the play materials required. She guessed, correctly, that this training would bring about an increase in the ascendance scores of these children.

This book offers a rich collection of international research narratives that reveal the qualities and value of peer play. It presents new understandings of peer play and relationships in chapters drawn from richly varied contexts that involve sibling play, collaborative peer play, and joint play with adults. The book explores social strategies such as cooperation, negotiation, playing with rules, expressing empathy, and sharing imaginary emotional peer play experiences. Its reconceptualization of peer play and relationships promotes new thinking on children's development in contemporary worlds. It shows how new knowledge generated about young children's play with peers illuminates how they learn and develop within and across communities, families, and educational settings in diverse cultural contexts. The book addresses issues that are relevant for parents, early years' professionals and academics, including the role of play in learning at school, the role of adults in self-initiated play, and the long-term impact of early friendships. The book makes clear how recent cultural differences involve digital, engineering and imaginary peer play. The book follows a clear line of argument highlighting the importance of play-based learning and stress the importance of further knowledge of children's interaction in their context. This book aims to highlight the narration of peer play, mostly leaning on a sociocultural theoretical perspective, where many chapters have a cultural-historical theoretical frame and highlight children's social situation of development. Polly Björk-Willén, Linköping University, Sweden

[This title] operates on the radical premise that neither child nor parent must dominate. -- Review.

Originally published in 1992, this volume provided an up-to-date overview of recent research concerning the links between family and peer systems. Considerable work in the past had focused on family issues or peer relationships, but these systems had typically been considered separately. This volume bridges the gap across these two important socialization contexts and provides insights into the processes that account for the links across the systems – the ways in which the relationships between these systems shift across development. In addition, the variations in the links between family and peers are illustrated by cross-cultural work, studies of abused children, and research on the impact of maternal depression. In short, the volume provides not only a convenient overview of recent progress at the time but lays out an agenda for future research.

Confident Parents, Confident Kids lays out an approach for helping parents—and the kids they love—hone their emotional intelligence so that they can make wise choices, connect and communicate well with others (even when patience is thin), and become socially conscious and confident human beings. How do we raise a happy, confident kid? And how can we be confident that our parenting is preparing our child for success? Our confidence develops from understanding and having a mastery over our emotions (aka emotional intelligence)—and helping our children do the same. Like learning to play a musical instrument, we can fine-tune our ability to skillfully react to those crazy, wonderful, big feelings that naturally arise from our child’s constant growth and changes, moving from chaos to harmony. We want our children to trust that they can conquer any challenge with hard work and persistence; that they can love boundlessly; that they will find their unique sense of purpose; and they will act wisely in a complex world. This book shows you how. With author and educator Jennifer Miller as your supportive guide, you'll learn: the lies we’ve been told about emotions, how they shape our choices, and how we can reshape our parenting decisions in better alignment with our deepest values. how to identify the temperaments your child was born with so you can support those tendencies rather than fight them. how to align your biggest hopes and dreams for your kids with specific skills that can be practiced, along with new research to support those powerful connections. about each age and stage your child goes through and the range of learning opportunities available. how to identify and manage those big emotions (that only the parenting process can bring out in us!) and how to model emotional intelligence for your children. how to deal with the emotions and influences of your choir—the many outside individuals and communities who directly impact your child’s life, including school, the digital world, extended family, neighbors, and friends. Raising confident, centered, happy kids—while feeling the same way about yourself—is possible with Confident Parents, Confident Kids.