The Happiest Toddler on the Block The New Way to Stop the Daily Battle of Wills and Raise a Secure and Well-Behaved One- to Four-Year-Old by Harvey Karp, Paula Spencer
	List Price: 14.00 Price: 11.20

Book Description

Toddlers can drive you bonkers... so adorable and fun one minute... so stubborn and demanding the next! Yet, as unbelievable as it sounds, there is a way to turn the daily stream of "nos" and "don'ts" into "yeses" and hugs... if you know how to speak your toddler's language. In one of the most useful advances in parenting techniques of the past twenty-five years, Dr. Karp reveals that toddlers, with their immature brains and stormy outbursts, should be thought of not as pint-size people but as pintsize... cavemen.

Having noticed that the usual techniques often failed to calm crying toddlers, Dr. Karp discovered that the key to effective communication was to speak to them in their own primitive language. When he did, suddenly he was able to soothe their outbursts almost every time! This amazing success led him to the realization that children between the ages of one and four go through four stages of "evolutionary" growth, each linked to the development of the brain, and each echoing a step in prehistoric humankind's journey to civilization:

• The "Charming Chimp-Child" (12 to 18 months): Wobbles around on two legs, grabs everything in reach, plays a nonstop game of "monkey see monkey do."

• The "Knee-High Neanderthal" (18 to 24 months): Strong-willed, fun-loving, messy, with a vocabulary of about thirty words, the favorites being "no" and "mine."

• The "Clever Caveman" (24 to 36 months): Just beginning to learn how to share, make friends, take turns, and use the potty.

• The "Versatile Villager" (36 to 48 months): Loves to tell stories, sing songs and dance, while trying hard to behave.

To speak to these children, Dr. Karp has developed two extraordinarily effective techniques:

1) The "fast food" rule - restating what your child has said to make sure you got it right;

2) The four-step rule - using gesture, repetition, simplicity, and tone to help your irate Stone-Ager be happy again.

Once you've mastered "toddler-ese," you will be ready to apply behavioral techniques specific to each stage of your child's development, such as teaching patience and calm, doing time-outs (and time-ins), praise through "gossiping," and many other strategies. Then all the major challenges of the toddler years - including separation anxiety, sibling rivalry, toilet training, night fears, sleep problems, picky eating, biting and hitting, medicine taking - can be handled in a way that will make your toddler feel understood. The result: fewer tantrums, less yelling, and, best of all, more happy, loving time for you and your child.

About the Author

Harvey Karp, M.D.

Harvey Karp, M.D., has perfected his approach to crying babies during his twenty-five years of experience as a pediatrician and child development specialist. Trained by some of America's top pediatricians, including Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, in 1981 Dr. Karp received the prestigious Ehrmann Fellowship to study crying and colic. Dr. Karp is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, with a private practice in Santa Monica.

  » More by Harvey Karp, M.D.

Paula Spencer

Paula Spencer specializes in health and family subjects for Woman's Day, Glamour, Parenting, Baby Talk, USA Weekend, and other publications. She is the author of four books on pregnancy and parenting, including Everything ELSE You Need to Know When You're Expecting..

  » More by Paula Spencer