Today's parents often worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant learning, but child development expert David Elkind reassures us that imaginative play goes far to prepare children for academic and social success. Through expert analysis of the research and powerful examples, Elkind shows how creative, spontaneous play fosters healthy mental and social development and sets the stage for academic learning in the first place. An important contribution to the literature about how children learn, The Power of Play restores play's respected place in children's lives and encourages parents to trust their instincts to stay away from many of the dubious educational products on the market.

Taking Parenting Public makes a compelling case that parenting has become dangerously undervalued in America today. It calls for a new investment--both personal and public--into the work of raising children and argues that we are all 'stockholders' in the next generation. With a foreword by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, Taking Parenting Public crosses boundaries to bring together thinkers from diverse fields spanning the political spectrum. It features contributions from distinguished experts in economics, political science, public policy, child development, public health, history, and the media. While recent books have focused on working mothers or absent fathers, Taking Parenting Public is the first volume to take a comprehensive look at the common struggles of parents. These essays go beyond the usual calls for more and better child care and other strategies of 'parent replacement' to offer fresh ideas for 'parent replenishment, ' ways of putting mothers and fathers back into the lives of their children not only as economic providers, but also as emotional and moral providers. For more information visit the National Parenting Association Web site.

Elkind reveals and explains the serious risks entailed in the current craze for giving formal academic and physical instructions to pre-school children four years old and younger.

Examine the evolution of developmentally appropriate practice with this biographical history of early childhood education. This book explores the theory's progression--from its beginnings in writings of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers, its experimental implementation by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century practitioners, and its scientific grounding in contemporary theory and research--and includes biographical sketches and perspectives of eleven philosophical, pedagogical, and theoretical figures--the giants--in this evolution.

David Elkind, PhD, is the best-selling author of more than twenty books and a well-known early childhood expert who has appeared on shows including "Today Show," "CBS Morning News," "20/20," "Dateline," "Donahue," and "Oprah."

With the first edition of The Hurried Child , David Elkind emerged as the voice of parenting reason, calling our attention to the crippling effects of hurrying our children through life. He showed that by blurring the boundaries of what is age appropriate, by expecting- or imposing- too much too soon, we force our kids to grow up too fast, to mimic adult sophistication while secretly yearning for innocence. In the more than two decades since this book first appeared, new generations of parents have inadvertently stepped up the assault on childhood, in the media, in schools, and at home. In the third edition of this classic (2001), Dr. Elkind provided a detailed, up-to-the-minute look at the Internet, classroom culture, school violence, movies, television, and a growing societal incivility to show parents and teachers where hurrying occurs and why. And as before, he offered parents and teachers insight, advice, and hope for encouraging healthy development while protecting the joy and freedom of childhood. In this twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the book, Dr. Elkind delivers important new commentary to put a quarter century of trends and change into perspective for parents today.

What has happened to the American family in the last few decades? And what are these changes doing to our children? David Elkind, renowned child psychologist and author of The Hurried Child, has devoted his career to these urgent questions. This eloquent book puts together all the puzzling facts and conflicting accounts to show us as never before what the American family has become.

Essential parenting advice from one of today's leading psychologists, at your fingertipsWhat is the most treasured resource for families with young children? Time. Between keeping house, shopping, doing chores, and getting everyone to work and school,let alone fitting in family meals, fun activities, and much-needed downtime,being a parent can require major feats of scheduling. While parents don't always have hours to pore over parenting books, they could use short, to-the-point advice on the challenges they confront every day.Now, for today's busy families, child-development expert and bestselling author David Elkind offers Parenting on the Go : an authoritative, accessible guide for parents of infants and young children. Elkind has long been praised for his timely, resonant responses to key child-rearing issues. Here, with characteristic insight and comforting sensibility, he offers practical answers to more than 100 common parenting questions, on topics from A to Z, including: Attention Deficit Disorders Back-to-School Blues Child-Proofing the Computer Empathy in Children Homework Manners and Morals Only Children Sibling Rivalry Time-Outsand much more. Praise for David Elkind" The Power of Play should be considered one of the primers for good parenting.", Chicago Parent "[O]ffers excellent perspectives on children, parents, and culture . . . this powerful book is essential reading.", Library Journal on The Hurried Child "Elkind . . . is a child-study specialist of eminent common sense . . . whom parents would do well to heed.", Publishers Weekly

Once our society set aside time for adolescents to grow from children to adults, to become accustomed to their expanding bodies and minds. Now the markers that defined passage,differences in dress, behaviour, and responsibilities,have vanished. The institutions that guarded adolescence, such as family and schools, now expect young adults" to deal with adult issues. Those trends leave teens no time to be teens. All Grown Up and No Place to Go spotlights the pressures on teenagers to grow up quickly. The resulting problems range from common alienation to self-destructive behaviour. Quoting teenagers themselves, Elkind shows why adolescence is a time of thinking in a new key," and how young people need this time to get used to the social and emotional changes their new thinking brings. Many of his ideas, such as the imaginary audience" that makes teens so self-conscious, have become seminal in adolescent psychology.Already there are more than 175,000 copies of All Grown Up and No Place to Go in print. In this thoroughly revised edition, Elkind also explores the post-modern family" in which teenagers are growing up. He helps parents and those who work with youth and understand teens in crucial ways, because the root of so many adolescent frictions is the gap between what teenagers need and what our culture provides.