A Good Start in Life: Understanding Your Child's Brain and Behavior

There are lots of child development books on the market. But how do readers – especially parents – find practical answers they can trust? A Good Start in Life provides just that.

We all want to do the best we can for our children. Nature has equipped us with an instinct to protect and nurture. Unfortunately, we have not been provided with universal rules of parenting. So we look to experts to fill that void. But there’s just so much information out there – and it often looks like half of it appears to be filled with contradictory advice while the other half is mired in scientific jargon that most parents have trouble deciphering. This is especially true of the data on the intricate workings of the developing brain. It’s a daunting task to figure out just what a parent should do. The key is to listen carefully to what science is telling us. Finally, we have sensible guides to interpret the information in straightforward and practical ways.

Dr. Norbert Herschkowitz, a Swiss pediatrician and neuroscientist, and his wife, Elinore Chapman Herschkowitz, an American educator, have teamed up to write this warm, friendly book to guide parents through the formative years of their child’s life. With a specific focus on the brain, we follow the path of early childhood development from gestation to birth to six years old. Each chapter deals with a particular phase of development.

We begin with “Life in the Womb – What Are You Doing In There?” and “Newborn – Here I am!” As parents add candles to the birthday cake, new chapters prepare them for what lies ahead. Best of all, each chapter is accompanied by a section called, “To Think About…” These sections address practical topics like good night rituals, testing limits, coping with conflict, reading books together, the value of piano lessons, evaluating day care options, and encouraging “why” questions.

Although there are scores of books that deal with early childhood development, few – if any – so artfully combine solid, reliable science with logical, clear-cut information and advice. Parents need no longer worry about missing special “windows” of learning opportunity. They don’t have to deal with lingering doubts about the “right” way or the “best” way to bring up their child. They won’t be left with that niggling feeling that they just didn’t do something essential. With science – and the Herschkowitz’s – by their side, the process of bringing up baby just got a whole lot easier.

Herschkowitz, a Swiss pediatrician and neuroscientist, and Chapman Herschkowitz, his American educator wife, use a novel device to tackle an oft-discussed subject child development. Directing their text at the educated parents of newborns to six year olds, the authors devise fictitious children of differing temperaments, which allows readers to connect with the text. As these children relate to their parents and one another, their activities at developmental milestones are described. A question-and-answer section closes each chapter. Concerns about what the parent should do in various situations are briefly answered by referring to a scientific explanation, though in several sections the discussion of a topic seems to end abruptly. Although slightly dated, Lise Eliot's What's Going on in There?, Kyle Pruett's Me, Myself, and I: How Children Build Their Sense of Self, and Craig T. and Sharon L. Ramey's Right from Birth are more complete. Still, with a glossary of technical terms and a fairly current bibliography, this remains a solid entry in a crowded field. Purchase for large public library collections. Margaret Cardwell, Christian Brothers Univ. Lib., Memphis
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The Herschkowitzes, pediatrician-neuroscientist and science-writer spouses, center on the child's postpartum needs. Their book's value arises from their ability to explain the various steps in child development with scientific information while showing the external effects of internal occurrences. Even though their explanations are rather technical, the science in them is remarkably accessible for lay readers. Primarily, they address the child's physiological and psychological development and its assimilation into society. Besides informing, the Herschkowitzes draw on their own experience as parents and years of clinical research to give advice in chapter-ending sections, uniformly entitled "To Think About," containing tips for parents as their children go through each developmental step. Mary Frances Wilkens
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