Early Years Books

A revised and updated edition of the classic, inspiring guide to raising calm and secure kids in a frenetic world, featuring a new chapter to address the modern parent’s concerns over setting limits and coping with social media “Brilliant, wise, informative, innovative, entertaining, and urgently needed . . . a godsend for all who love children, and for children themselves.”—Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness Today’s busier, faster society is waging an undeclared war on childhood. With too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time, children can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioral problems. Internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne helps parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need for their attention to deepen and their individuality to flourish. Accessible and thoughtful, Simplicity Parenting offers inspiration, ideas, and a blueprint for change: • Streamline your home environment . Reduce the amount of toys, books, and clutter—as well as the lights, sounds, and general sensory overload. • Establish rhythms and rituals. Discover ways to ease daily tensions, create battle-free mealtimes and bedtimes, and tell if your child is overwhelmed. • Schedule a break in the schedule . Establish intervals of calm and connection in your child’s daily torrent of constant doing. • Scale back on media and parental involvement . Manage your children’s “screen time” to limit the endless deluge of information and stimulation. • Cultivate a values-centric family culture instead of a child-centric culture. Model your authority, not your authoritarianism. A manifesto for protecting the grace of childhood, Simplicity Parenting is an eloquent guide to bringing new rhythms to bear on the lifelong art of raising children.

Too Much, Too Soon? tackles the burning question of how to reverse the erosion of childhood by nurturing young children’s wellbeing and learning capacity. Children’s lives have been speeded up by commercialization, adultification, and government programs such as No Child Left Behind and the “nappy curriculum”― a controversial program in the Britain that requires children to hit a series of sixty-nine targets by age five―aspects of which “schoolify” early learners and push quasi-formal learning too soon. Twenty-two hard-hitting chapters by leading educators, researchers, policy-makers, and parents advocate for alternative ways for slowing childhood, better policy-making, and, most important, the right learning at the right time in children’s growth, when they are developmentally ready. CHAPTERS PART I: Policy Making and the Erosion of Childhood: The Case of the Early Years Foundation Stage 1. The EYFS and the Real Foundations of Children’s Early Years – Penelope Leach 2. Challenging Government Policy-making for the Early Years: Early Open EYE Contributions – Margaret Edgington, Richard House, Lynne Oldfield, and Sue Palmer 3. Against the Government’s Grain: The Experience of Forging a Path to EYFS Exemption – JOHN DOUGHERTY 4. The Impact of the EYES on Childminders – Arthur and Pat Adams 5. A Parent’s Challenge to New Labour’s Early Years Foundation Stage – Frances Laing 6. The Tickell Review of the Early Years Foundation Stage: An “Open EYE” dialogue – The Open EYE Campaign PART II: The Foundations of Child Development and Early Learning: Perspectives, Principles and Practices 7. The Myth of Early Stimulation for Babies – Sylvie Hétu 8. Current Perspectives on the Early Childhood Curriculum – Lilian Katz 9. Physical Foundations for Learning – Sally Goddard Blythe 10. The Unfolding Self –The Essence of Personality – Kim Simpson 11. The Democratization of Learning – Wendy Ellyatt 12. The Steiner Waldorf Foundation Stage – 13. Can We Play? – David Elkind 14. Play – Transforming Thinking – Tricia David 15. Challenging the Reggio Emilia Approach with Relational Materialist Thinking and an Ethics of Potentialities – Hillevi Lenz Taguchi Part III: Advocacy, Research and Policy Making for Children’s Early Years’ Learning 16. “If I Wanted My Child to Learn to Read and Write, I Wouldn’t Start from Here” – Sue Palmer 17. Viewing the Long-Term Effects of Early Reading with an Open Eye – Sebastian Suggate 18. Early Childhood Research and its Political Usage: Some Cautionary Remarks – Richard House 19. Does Not Compute, Revisited: Screen Technology in Early Years Education – Aric Sigman 20. An Inveterate Early Childhood Campaigner – Margaret Edgington interviewed by Richard House Part IV: Ways Ahead to Achievable Futures 21. Education and Paradigm Shift – Grethe Hooper Hansen 22. Early Childhood: A Policy-Making Perspective – Barry Sheerman Towards the Future: Implications and Recommendations for Educationalists and Policy-makers – Wendy Scott and Richard House AFTERWORD – Richard Brinton and Gabriel Millar

The Well Balanced Child is a passionate manifesto for a "whole body" approach to learning which integrates the brain, senses, movement and play. This fully revised edition includes a new chapter with a story and movement exercise that parents can use to help children reach their potential.

More children are obese, enter school developmentally delayed and need special education. So Sally Goddard Blythe draws on neuroscience to unpack the wisdom of nursery rhymes, playing traditional games and fairy stories for healthy child development. She explains why movement matters and how games develop children's skills at different stages of development. She offers a starter kit of stories, action games, songs and rhymes.

Raising Happy Healthy Children is a fully-updated second edition of What Children and Babies Really Need . With new information carefully added, this book examines the crucial early years from a child’s perspective. It draws on the latest scientific research to show how the first few years determine the way children develop, body and mind, for the rest of their lives. The keys to this development are parents, and in particular mothers. A society that really cares for its children, says Sally Goddard Blythe, values parents and makes it possible for them to spend time and be actively involved with their children for at least the first two years of life. Raising Happy Healthy Children presents convincing research to show how a baby’s relationship with its mother has a lasting, deep impact. Recent social changes, such as delayed motherhood, juggling of work/life balance, limited uptake of breastfeeding, and use of parent-substitute baby equipment and electronic devices, are interfering with key developmental milestones that are essential for wellbeing in later life. Sally Goddard Blythe says: ‘We need a society that gives children their parents, and most of all values motherhood in the early years.’ Includes : ∞ Latest research about pre-conceptual, baby and child development. ∞ How social changes have unleashed a crisis in the experience of childhood. ∞ The crucial early years and child development from the child’s perspective ∞ How parents can give their child the best start in life. ∞ The importance of motherhood. “Provides parents with the information they need to raise healthy, balanced, resilient children.… Above all it demonstrates that what babies and children really need is the time, love and attention of the loving adults in their lives.” ― Marie Peacock , former Chair of Mothers at Home Matter (from the foreword)

This book presents a clear, deep and accessible overview of the philosophical, developmental and educational foundations of Rudolf Steiner/Waldorf education—as a dynamic, adaptable, creative process for which a profound sense of the uniqueness of each child is foundational. It demystifies Steiner as a philosopher of "freehood" and discusses the threefold human being in psychology. Child development: topics covered include the 12 senses and sensory motor development, language, and inner life. Education principles covered include imitation, purposeful activity and free play; nature; music and the arts; rhythm, structure, trust and security; observing and understanding children; self-development and reflection; comparison with other preschool approaches.

This book is a unique and valuable resource for parents and guardians who wish to give their children the best start in life. The author has drawn on her years of experience facilitating parenting groups and working as a family therapist to present these techniques clearly, illustrated by a wealth of real-life examples. She explains how to help your child become confident, capable, caring, and able to reach their full potential. She gives parents and guardians simple skills for developing healthier relationships with their children of all ages. These include: acknowledging feelings, clear communication, descriptive praise, assertiveness, child-led play, describing behavior instead of labeling the child, problem solving, and discipline strategies. She also has advice on balancing parents'/guardians' stress with self-care.