Brazelton T. Berry

How to react when your toddler bites his playmate or your kindergartner confronts a bully? Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow bring their much-admired insight and support to this crucial, and ever more timely, childrearing challenge. From an early age, babies and toddlers need to assert themselves in a daunting world, yet eventually learn to do this without hurting others. After showing how aggression emerges at each age, Brazelton and Sparrow offer practical, wise advice on anger, fights, self-defence, the fears and nightmares that arise when children become aware of their own and others' aggression, the effects of TV and video games, and of experiencing real life violence. They offer specific, effective ways to help children understand their own aggressive feelings and channel them into healthy self-assertion in schoolwork, games, and sports.

The teasing, squabbling, competition, and ferocious fights of brothers and sisters can drive any parent to frantic desperation. At the same time, Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow point out, siblings are learning from one another and deep, close relationships are forming that will last a lifetime. In this absolutely indispensable addition to the Brazelton Way series, the authors show how parents can defuse much of the bickering, while helping to strengthen warm relationships. They help parents understand the universal Touchpoints" of sibling rivalry at each age, as well as the problems in particular family situations. From the combined delight and resentment that a sibling feels toward a new baby, to birth order, blended families, sex play, scapegoats, meltdowns, and competition in school, parents will find welcome advice in this wise, comforting book.

Never before has research on newborn behavior and parent-infant interaction been fully integrated with psychoanalytic insight into parents' emotions and fantasies. This book provide a vivid glimpse of the parents' daydreams and narcissistic wishes which grow into a desire for a child, and they show how these feelings develop into important attachments to the unborn infant during pregnancy. The "power and competence" of the newborn born then challenges parental fantasies, desires, wishes and expectations, creating the beginnings of the bond between parent and child. Using the latest research, the authors clarify all the ways the infant participates in the dawning relationship and the ingredients of very early communication and interaction. They then unveil the "imaginary interactions" which lend meaning and drama to each gesture and expression. We see the baby as Tyrant, as Savior, or as the reincarnation of lost relationships. Everyone who cares for mothers and babies-pediatricians, developmental and clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, early childhood specialists, nurses and social workers-as well as interested parents, will find this book of immediate value.