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)

Your Travel Destination. Your Home. Your Home-To-Be. Long Island Explore a 118-mile-long reason to love New York. Experience the best of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Savor the beaches, the fresh seafood, the local wines. • A personal, practical perspective for travelers and residents alike • Comprehensive listings of attractions, restaurants, and accommodations • How to live & thrive in the area—from recreation to relocation • Countless details on shopping, arts & entertainment, and children’s activities

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

The Creative Curriculum comes alive! This videotape-winner of the 1989 Silver Apple Award at the National Educational Film and Video Festival-demonstrates how teachers set the stage for learning by creating a dynamic well-organized environment. It shows children involved in seven of the interest areas in the The Creative Curriculum and explains how they learn in each area. Everyone conducts in-service training workshops for staff and parents or who teaches early childhood education courses will find the video an indispensable tool for explainin appropriate practice.

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.

In the new Fifth Edition of Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology, three award winning authors and teachers of sociology set out to inspire students to develop their sociological imaginations. Readers are encouraged to see the impact of larger social structures and global trends on their personal lives and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. In each chapter, authors Jeanne H. Ballantine, Keith A. Roberts, and new co-author Kathleen Odell Korgen, relate everything back to the social world model to promote “deep learning” of a fundamental sociological concept: the micro-to-macro organization of society. Above all else, adopters of this unique, easy to read, and innovative text use it because it helps their students to learn about sociology and to use sociological tools throughout the course and beyond. Their students are able to articulate what sociology is and to explain the macro to micro links in the social system. Can you identify any other introductory text which has a coherent thesis that runs throughout the text?

This highly anticipated third edition of the Handbook of Parenting brings together an array of field-leading experts who have worked in different ways toward understanding the many diverse aspects of parenting. Contributors to the Handbook look to the most recent research and thinking to shed light on topics every parent, professional, and policy maker wonders about. Parenting is a perennially "hot" topic. After all, everyone who has ever lived has been parented, and the vast majority of people become parents themselves. No wonder bookstores house shelves of "how-to" parenting books and magazine racks in pharmacies and airports overflow with periodicals that feature parenting advice. However, almost none of these is evidence-based. The Handbook of Parenting is. Period. Each chapter has been written to be read and absorbed in a single sitting, and includes historical considerations of the topic, a discussion of central issues and theory, a review of classical and modern research, and forecasts of future directions of theory and research. Together, the five volumes in the Handbook cover Children and Parenting, the Biology and Ecology of Parenting, Being and Becoming a Parent, Social Conditions and Applied Parenting, and the Practice of Parenting. Volume 5, The Practice of Parenting, describes the nuts-and-bolts of parenting as well as the promotion of positive parenting practices. Parents meet the biological, physical, and health requirements of children. Parents interact with children socially. Parents stimulate children to engage and understand the environment and to enter the world of learning. Parents provision, organize, and arrange their children’s home and local environments and the media to which children are exposed. Parents also manage child development vis-à-vis childcare, school, the circles of medicine and law, as well as other social institutions through their active citizenship. The chapters in Part I, on Practical Parenting, review the ethics of parenting, parenting and the development of children's self-regulation, discipline, prosocial and moral development, and resilience as well as children’s language, play, cognitive, and academic achievement and children’s peer relationships. The chapters in Part II, on Parents and Social Institutions, explore parents and their children’s childcare, activities, media, schools, and healthcare and examine relations between parenthood and the law, public policy, and religion and spirituality.