Early Years

How to nurture young children's well-being and learning to reverse the erosion of childhood? Children's lives have been speeded up by commercialisation, 'adultification', and the government's 'nappy curriculum' which 'schoolifies' them and pushes quasi-formal learning too soon. Now, in twenty-three hard-hitting chapters, leading educators, researchers, policy makers and parents advocate alternative ways ahead for slowing childhood, better policy-making and, above all, the 'right learning at the right time' in children's growth ? learning when they are developmentally ready.

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.

A Southern woman from Mississippi, I am embarking on my debut novela heartfelt journey through the lives of three generations of resilient women: my mother, myself, and my daughter. Inspired by my own life, this story captures the essence of strength, love, and legacy within our family. For years, I've lived with a chronic illness, one that has shaped my daughter's perception of me as only a disabled mother. But there is so much more to who I am. This book is my way of showing her the vibrant, determined person I have always been, while reminding her of the unshakable lineage of strong women she comes from. At its core, this is a story of empowerment, connection, and the enduring strength passed from one generation to the next.

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. 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.

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.