 | Parenting Books
Parenting books offer a wide variety of research, expertise, opinions, and advice. As a family therapist, child development specialist, and parenting educator for over 30 years, here's my advice:
Read, ask, listen, consider, and then tap into your own best judgment and good instincts to come up with the answers that are truly right for your own family.
I recently canvassed a group of parents in Orange County with young children about what books have been useful to them. The books listed are a compilation of their recommendation along with those books I have used and recommended to hundreds of parents over the years.
Linda Hunter, M.A., M.F.T.
Director of Education
Pretend City
(Grandmother of Nine)
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Growth and Development
Touchpoints
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D.
Brazelton provides the kindly, reassuring approach of your own family physician. Touchpoints provides chronological accounts of the basic stages of early childhood, presents the challenges to development, and explores the important role of each person--father, mother, caregiver--in a child's life.
Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5
By: American Academy of Pediatrics
How can you find out what to do when your healthcare professionals are unreachable? Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5 (the American Academy of Pediatrics' reference book for infancy through preschool), provides a wealth of authoritative child-care information in an easy-to-use format.
The Early Childhood Years — The 2 to 6 Year Old
By: Theresa & Frank Kaplan
Knowledge and understanding of how a child grows and learns can help parents avoid many problems. This is one in a series of books about the various things to expect in each developmental stage of a child's life. Useful and easy to read.
The Second Twelve Months of Life
By: Theresa & Frank Kaplan
The developmental stages and expectations for children ages 12 — 24 months. Useful and easy to read.
What to Expect: Toddler Years
By: Arlene Eisenber, Heidi Murkoff, Sandee Hathaway
Answers to hundreds of questions and worries expectant parents may have. The information is presented in a month-by-month format from 12 to 36 months.
The Emotional Life of a Toddler
By: Alicia F. Lieberman, Ph.D.
An in-depth examination of the varied and intense emotional life of children from ages one to three.
The Child with Special Needs: Encouraging Intellectual and Emotional Growth
By: Stanley I. Greenspan M.D.
Provides a wealth of information on the emotional development and behavioral challenges of neurologically impaired children. This hefty resource is informative, insightful and inspirational.
Development: Prenatal to 12 Months
The First Twelve Months of Life
By: Theresa & Frank Kaplan
The developmental stages and expectations for babies from conception to 12 months of life. Useful and easy to read.
The Fourth Trimester: And You Thought Labor was Hard.
Edited by: Amy Einhorn
Advice, humor and inspiration for new moms on surviving the first six weeks and beyond.
What to Expect When You're Expecting
By: Arlene Eisenber, Heidi Murkoff, Sandee Hathaway
Answers to hundreds of questions and worries expectant parents may have. The information is presented in a month-by-month format starting with planning a pregnancy and choosing a practitioner, and follows through to six weeks after delivery.
What to Expect the First Year
By: Arlene Eisenber, Heidi Murkoff, Sandee Hathaway
Answers to hundreds of questions and worries expectant parents may have. The information is presented in a month-by-month format starting with the birth process through the first 12 months.
The Premature Baby Book
By: William Sears M.D.
A comprehensive, authoritative guide to understanding why babies are born prematurely, what the ramifications of such births are and what parents can do about it.
From Conception to Birth
By: Alexander Tsiaras
The splendor and beauty of a child's growth and development in the womb--seen through unforgettable images made possible by revolutionary advances in visualization technology. This incredible book tracks the development of a baby from the moment of conception, through the explosively complex early stages of development and the amazing stages of growth as the baby is nurtured by the mother, ending with the joy of birth.
Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Baby's Natural Abilities from the Very Start
By: Magda Gerber & Allison Johnson
Offers an excellent common sense approach that points out the importance of respecting your baby. An approach to raising healthy, independent, cooperative and emotionally secure children.
Dear Parents: Caring for Infants with Respect
By: Magda Gerber
The author recommends simple, profound gestures that you can use from day one to show your infant that her feelings and preferences are important to you.
Building Better Brains — Brain Development
Brain Games for Babies: Simple Games to Promote Early Brain Development
By: Jackie Silberg
The book gives you many ideas of ways to interact with your baby that constitute the very building blocks of critical brain development.
125 Brain Games for Toddlers and Two's: Simple Games to Promote Early Brain Development
By: Jackie Silberg
The book gives you many ideas of ways to interact with your toddler that constitute the very building blocks of critical brain development.
What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life
By: Lisse Eliot Ph.D.
As a neuroscientist and a new mother, the author presents the most "user-friendly" book detailing how a child's brain development progresses from conception through the first five years of life. While still technical, it is relatable to the non-scientist who is interested in learning more how to enhance brain development in young children.
The Out of Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Integration Dysfunction
By: Carol Stock Krnowitz, M.A.
Children with perfectly normal "far senses" (such as sight and hearing) may have, because of a poorly integrated nervous system, serious problems with their "near senses," including touch, balance, and internal muscle sensation. It's called Sensory Integration Dysfunction, or SI. For parents wanting to understand more about this developmental challenge.
Parenting Information
Toilet Learning
By: Alison Mack
Quick and easy read with good practical information about the age-old challenge of transitioning from using diapers to using the toilet.
Discipline: The Brazelton Way
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D.
The authors point out that discipline involves teaching (not punishment), providing boundaries that all kids require. Children who can count on boundaries and rules, Brazelton says, feel safe and loved.
Children Learn What They Live
By: Dorothy Law Nolte
The expanded version of the classic poem "Children Learn What They Live" maintains the grace and wisdom of the original, yet adds significant insight into the process of encouraging values through example.
Girlfriend's Guide to .. (series)
By: Vicki Iovine
Beyond child development theory and experts, beyond the "shoulds" and the "don'ts" that guilt-ridden parents constantly hear echoing in their ears, there's Vicki Iovine, America's favorite "girlfriend" and mother-in-the-trenches.
Parent Effectiveness Training
By: Dr. Thomas Gordon
Parent Effectiveness Training, began almost forty years ago as the first national parent-training program to teach parents how to communicate more effectively with kids and offer step-by-step advice to resolving family conflicts so everybody wins.
Boundaries for Kids
By: Henry Cloud, Ph.D. & John Townsend Ph.D.
Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend take you through the ins and outs of establishing family boundaries and of instilling the kind of character in your children that will help them lead balanced, productive, and fulfilling adult lives.
Healthy Sleep habits, Happy Children
By: Marc Weissbluth
One of the country's leading researchers updates his revolutionary approach to solving--and preventing--your children's sleep problems.
The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night
By: Elizabeth Pantley & William Sears M.D.
There are two schools of thought for encouraging babies to sleep through the night: the letting the baby "cry it out," or the grin-and-bear-it solution of getting up from dusk to dawn as often as necessary. If you don't believe in letting your baby cry it out, but desperately want to sleep, there is now a third option presented in this book.
The Joy of Twins and Other Multiple Births
By: Pamela Patrick Novotny
Not meant for the expectant parent, this book cuts right to the chase: the babies have been born--it's time to rally. With a deft combination of coaching tones and facts galore, she addresses each issue thoroughly and insightfully, and offers excellent suggestions for coming to terms with the many changes.
From the Heart: On Being the Mother of a Child with Special Needs
By: Jayne D. B. Marsch
Nine mothers explore the intense, sometimes painful, emotional terrain of raising children with special needs in eye-opening narratives developed from their parent support group meetings.
The Dr. Sears series of parenting books (17)
By: William Sears M.D.M
A series of comprehensive parenting books from the leading specialist on "Attachment Parenting."
How Much is Enough
By: Jean Illsley Clarke Ph.D., Connie Dawson Ph.D. & David J. Bredehoft Ph.D.
This book helps parents understand the risks of over-coddling, over-scheduling and over-stimulating their children and warns that they risk damage in character development through overindulgence.
Prescriptions for Parenting
By: Carolyn Ann Meeks, M.D.
Short, fun one-page "prescriptions" for all sorts of parenting challenges.
Recipes from Parenting
By: Sandy Spurgeon-McDaniel
From the author of the Orange County Register's Parenting SOS column, this is a quick read with fun short "recipes" for solving parenting challenges.
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