The Natural Child

Discover an age-old parenting method that treats children with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion from infancy into adulthood. The Natural Child makes a compelling case for a return to attachment parenting, a child-rearing approach that has come naturally for parents throughout most of human history. In this insightful guide, parenting specialist Jan Hunt links together attachment parenting principles with child advocacy and homeschooling philosophies, offering a consistent approach to raising a loving, trusting, and confident child. The Natural Child dispels the myths of “tough love,” building baby’s self-reliance by ignoring its cries, and the necessity of spanking to enforce discipline. Instead, the book explains the value of extended breast-feeding, family co-sleeping, and minimal child-parent separation. Homeschooling, like attachment parenting, nurtures feelings of self-worth, confidence, and trust. The author draws on respected leaders of the homeschool movement such as John Taylor Gatto and John Holt, guiding the reader through homeschool approaches that support attachment parenting principles. Being an ally to children is spontaneous for caring adults, but intervening on behalf of a child can be awkward and surrounded by social taboo. The Natural Child shows how to stand up for a child’s rights effectively and sensitively in many difficult situations. The role of caring adults, points out Hunt, is not to give children “lessons in life”—but to employ a variation of The Golden Rule, and treat children as we would like to have been treated in childhood. Praise for The Natural Child “I had grown jaded with the flood of parenting books, but The Natural Child is a rare and splendid exception . . . . I can’t praise it sufficiently, and would place it along with Leidloff’s Continuum Concept and my own Magical Child . . . . It could make an enormous difference if read widely enough.” —Joseph Chilton Pierce, author of The Magical Child “In prose that is at the same time eloquent and simple, [Hunt] provides a mix of useful parenting tips that are supported by the philosophy that children reflect the treatment they receive. This is no less than an impassioned plea for the future—not only our children’s future, but the future of our way oof life on this planet.” —Wendy Priesnitz, Editor, Natural Life Magazine

Krys Malcolm Belc's visual memoir-in-essays explores how the experience of gestational parenthood—conceiving, birthing, and breastfeeding his son Samson—eventually clarified his gender identity. Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner, Anna, adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as “the natural mother of the child.” By considering how the experiences contained under the umbrella of “motherhood” don’t fully align with Belc’s own experience, The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family. With this visual memoir in essays, Belc has created a new kind of life record, one that engages directly with the documentation often thought to constitute a record of one’s life—childhood photos, birth certificates—and addresses his deep ambivalence about the “before” and “after” so prevalent in trans stories, which feels apart from his own experience. The Natural Mother of the Child is the story of a person moving past societal expectations to take control of his own narrative, with prose that delights in the intimate dailiness of family life and explores how much we can ever really know when we enter into parenting.

An exciting new perspective on raising children--featuring invaluable insights into a child's point of view and a breakthrough look at the spiritual dimension of childhood. Thomson discusses how to stimulate a child's creative potential, how to find the educational style that suits a child, and more. 87 full-color and black-and-white photos. 114 line drawings.

The Book That Launched an International Movement Fans of The Anxious Generation will adore Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv's groundbreaking New York Times bestseller. “An absolute must-read for parents.” —The Boston Globe “It rivals Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.” —The Cincinnati Enquirer “I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are,” reports a fourth grader. But it’s not only computers, television, and video games that are keeping kids inside. It’s also their parents’ fears of traffic, strangers, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus; their schools’ emphasis on more and more homework; their structured schedules; and their lack of access to natural areas. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and even organizations devoted to the outdoors are placing legal and regulatory constraints on many wild spaces, sometimes making natural play a crime. As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity. In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents, children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-development researchers, and environmentalists who recognize the threat and offer solutions. Louv shows us an alternative future, one in which parents help their kids experience the natural world more deeply—and find the joy of family connectedness in the process. Included in this edition: A Field Guide with 100 Practical Actions We Can Take Discussion Points for Book Groups, Classrooms, and Communities Additional Notes by the Author New and Updated Research from the U.S. and Abroad

It shouldn't hurt to be a child!

When a large present awaits an infant, he wonders what it could contain, though every item he imagines cannot compare to the love his parents give him.

Baby-boomer parents with nearly 26 million children and more on the way--are looking for new and creative ways to help their youngsters develop and achieve their full potential. They want practical ideas for activities to do at home and authoritative advice on how to get the most out of their children's schools. Illustrations throughout.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) is well known for his work in phenomenology, but his lectures in child psychology and pedagogy have received little attention, probably because Talia Welsh translated the lectures in their entirety only in 2010. The Child as Natural Phenomenologist summarizes Merleau-Ponty’s work in child psychology, shows its relationship to his philosophical work, and argues for its continued relevance in contemporary theory and practice. ​ Welsh demonstrates Merleau-Ponty’s unique conception of the child’s development as inherently organized, meaningful, and engaged with the world, contrary to views that see the child as largely internally preoccupied and driven by instinctual demands. Welsh finds that Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about human psychology remain relevant in today’s growing field of child studies and that they provide important insights for philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists to better understand the human condition.

Kinder, Gentler, and It Really Works Based on the human rest and activity cycle that occurs every hour and a half, here’s a scientifically based program for parents to help babies get all the sleep they need, both through the night and during the day. The method is simple, foolproof, and yields long-lasting results: truly restful daytime naps (which also gives an infant a head start on cognitive development and emotional intelligence) and consistent nighttime sleep—as beneficial for parents as it is for the baby. For babies aged two weeks to one year Lessons in sleep independence and solutions to common problems, such as your baby waking up too early, getting a second wind before bedtime, confusing day and night, and more Includes a guided journal for recording your baby’s sleep signals and keeping track of naps and bedtimes A simple program for sleep that delivers foolproof results.

William Damon offers the first, much-needed overview of the evolution and nurturance of children's moral understanding and behavior from infancy through adolescence, at home and in school. Drawing on the best professional research and thinking, Professor William Damon charts pragmatic, workable approaches to foster basic virtues such as honesty, responsibility, kindness, and fairness—methods that can make an invaluable difference throughout children's lives.