The Tending Years: Understanding Your Child’s Earliest Rituals

Every day you meet your child’s spiritual and emotional needs—you just don’t know it. In this short, accessible, and comforting book, expert J.L. Shattuck provides insight into your child’s earliest rituals.

Have you ever wondered why your toddler will only drink from a specific cup, or only eat if you turn mealtime into a game? Have you ever found yourself following along with—and maybe even enjoying—your child’s increasingly elaborate bedtime routines?

In The Tending Years: Understanding Your Child’s Earliest Rituals, J.L. Shattuck argues that these behaviors are not just habits but rituals—patterns of behavior young children naturally develop to reassure themselves they are safe and loved. Shattuck draws on child developmental theory and more than two decades of experience as a teacher, religious educator, and parent to explore the spiritual roots of this behavior. She demonstrates how adults and young children instinctively work together to support each other’s growth during this unique developmental period.

Unlike parenting books that ask you to change the way you interact with your child, this easy-to-read volume details the ways in which you’re already tending to your child’s needs and offers inspiration and support to help you through the preschool years and beyond.

J.L. Shattuck has worked with preschoolers for more than twenty years. A lifelong Unitarian Universalist, she supports congregations to meet the spiritual needs of the very young. She currently serves as Family Worship Coordinator at Sanctuary Boston and is a religious educator at the Unitarian Church of Barnstable. She is also the creator of a curriculum of digital resources, POP! (Parents of Preschoolers), that helps families explore and support their children’s spiritual development.