Balanced and Barefoot

Bringing Up Bébé meets Last Child in the Woods in this lively, insightful memoir about a mother who sets out to discover if the nature-centric parenting philosophy of her native Scandinavia holds the key to healthier, happier lives for her American children.

Discover the parenting secrets of the happiest people in the world. What makes Denmark the happiest country in the world - and how do Danish parents raise happy, confident, successful kids year after year? This upbeat and practical guide reveals the six essential principles that have been working for parents in Denmark for decades. A revealing and fresh take on parenting advice, The Danish Way of Parenting will help parents from all walks of life raise the happiest, most well-adjusted kids.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.

Connecting deeply with our kids can be difficult in our busy, technology-driven lives. Reading aloud offers us a chance to be fully present with our children. It also increases our kids’ academic success, inspires compassion, and fortifies them with the inner strength they need to face life’s challenges. As Sarah Mackenzie has found with her own six children, reading aloud long after kids are able to read to themselves can deepen relationships in a powerful way.

What do you do with a little kid who...won't brush her teeth...screams in his car seat...pinches the baby...refuses to eat vegetables...runs rampant in the supermarket? Organized according to common challenges and conflicts, this book is an essential emergency first-aid manual of communication strategies, including a chapter that addresses the special needs of children with sensory processing and autism spectrum disorders.

The first book of its kind, Peak Performance combines the inspiring stories of top performers across a range of capabilities - from athletic, to intellectual, to artistic - with the latest scientific insights into the cognitive and neurochemical factors that drive performance in all domains. In doing so, Peak Performance uncovers new linkages that hold promise as performance enhancers but have been overlooked in our traditionally-siloed ways of thinking.

Playful Parenting means joining children in their world of play, focusing on connection and confidence, giggling and roughhousing, and following your child's lead. This audiobook is an exciting approach to raising children that will help you nurture close relationships and solve behavior problems.

Janet Lansbury's advice on respectful parenting is quoted and shared by millions of listeners worldwide. Inspired by the pioneering parenting philosophy of her friend and mentor, Magda Gerber, Janet's influential voice encourages parents and child-care professionals to perceive babies as unique, capable human beings with natural abilities to learn without being taught; to develop motor and cognitive skills; communicate; face age appropriate struggles; initiate and direct independent play for extended periods; and much more.

Janet Lansbury is unique among parenting experts. As a RIE teacher and student of pioneering child specialist Magda Gerber, her advice is not based solely on formal studies and the research of others, but also on her twenty years of hands-on experience guiding hundreds of parents and their toddlers. No Bad Kids is a collection of Janet's most popular and widely read articles pertaining to common toddler behaviors and how respectful parenting practices can be applied to benefit both parents and children.

Fifty years ago John Holt woke the dreary world of educational theory by showing that for small children "learning is as natural as breathing". His brilliant observations are as true today as they were then. Over one million copies were sold worldwide in the decades that followed. Today the theorists are still squabbling, and Holt's wisdom is needed more than ever. As a hero of progressive education and homeschoolers, his time has come again.

In The Gardener and the Carpenter, pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar 21st-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong - it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for kids and parents, too. Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way.

Today's parents are constantly pressured to be perfect. But in striving to do everything right, we risk missing what children really need for lifelong emotional security. Now the simple, powerful "Circle of Security" parenting strategies that Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper, and Bert Powell have taught thousands of families are available in self-help form for the first time. Filled with vivid stories and unique practical tools, this book puts the keys to healthy attachment within everyone's reach - self-understanding, flexibility, and the willingness to make and learn from mistakes.

Recorded on March 30-31, 1969, at a New York City sculpture studio, these are the original talks by Ram Dass that became basis for his seminal book, Be Here Now.

In Raising Human Beings, the renowned child psychologist and New York Times best-selling author of Lost at School and The Explosive Child explains how to cultivate a better parent-child relationship while also nurturing empathy, honesty, resilience, and independence.

Parenting can be such an overwhelming job that it's easy to lose track of where you stand on some of the more controversial subjects at the playground (What if my kid likes to rough house - isn't this ok as long as no one gets hurt? And what if my kid just doesn't feel like sharing?). In this inspiring and enlightening book, Heather Shumaker describes her quest to nail down "the rules" to raising smart, sensitive, and self-sufficient kids.