When parents are warm, responsive, encouraging, and communicative - the key elements of developmental parenting - they lay the foundation for young children's school readiness, social competence, and mental health. That's why every early childhood professional needs this comprehensive, practical guide to building a developmental parenting program for the families they serve. Unlike other approaches that limit parents to a 'student' role, the proven, the parenting-focused model in this book shows home visitors how to put parents and other caregivers confidently in charge of guiding and supporting their young children's development.This work helps home visitors and other early childhood professionals to learn the ABCs of facilitating developmental parenting: Attitudes - be responsive, supportive, flexible, and culturally sensitive while looking for the family's strengths and building on them; Behaviors - actively encourage positive parent-child interaction, support developmental parenting behaviors, establish a collaborative partnership with parents, use family activities as learning opportunities, and involve other family members; and, Content - provide parents with clear and relevant information on child development, determine the best curricula for selecting and adapting parent-child activities, and learn to use assessments skillfully to evaluate child progress and parenting behaviors. This how-to guidebook includes all the support early childhood professionals need to facilitate developmental parenting effectively. Program directors will get step-by-step guidance on supervising and evaluating the program, and professionals who work directly with parents will get easy-to-implement strategies, case studies of successful interactions, and tips and advice from other practitioners. With this research-based and reader-friendly book, early childhood professionals will learn to put parents in charge of guiding their child's development - resulting in strong parent-child bonds, healthy families, and improved school readiness.

Where are parents' skills the strongest-and how can they be encouraged to better support young children's cognitive, social, and language development? Home visitors can find out in minutes with PICCOLO (TM), the quick, reliable observational tool designed to assess and monitor the quality of parent-child interactions. Developed for use with parents of children ages 1 to 3, PICCOLO (TM) measures 29 developmentally supportive parenting behaviours in 4 critical domains-Affection, Responsiveness, Encouragement, and Teaching. It's the best way to assess which parenting behaviours are working, develop individualised interventions that help parents improve, and track the positive outcomes of your parent support programme. Why PICCOLO (TM)? Research-based-assesses parenting behaviours with direct, proven links to positive child outcomes Quick, clear, and easy to use-takes just 10 minutes for parent-child observation Highly reliable-based on 4,500 video observations of 2,000 diverse families Training DVD includes 16 invaluable DVD clips of parent-child interactions to help you practice observing and scoring Culturally sensitive and relevant Ready to use anytime: at program entry, throughout the year, and at program exit Helps you provide positive feedback to parents and plan intervention Great way to monitor parent/child outcomes and program effectiveness Spanish translation included This package consists of 25 4-page forms.