Infants, Toddlers, and Caregivers is an ideal introduction to care and education in the first three years of life, featuring a respectful, cohesive approach inspired by Magda Gerber and Dr. Emmi Pikler, pioneers in what Gerber called “Educaring.” The text emphasizes the value of play and exploration, as well as giving careful attention to those caregiving times, when relationships grow and an abundance of learning occurs.
A comprehensive look at various aspects of infant and toddler care (< 3 years), with an emphasis on providing the physical and social environment needed for young people to become independent, sociable problem-solvers with a good handle on their emotions. Once you wrap your mind around the core philosophy of the book, a lot of the chapters sort of write themselves, but there's still value in having all the information in one place as one begins to figure out one's own parenting style. Also, there's a little bit of a weird emphasis on complex neuroscience concepts that feel juxtaposed with the otherwise fairly child development and psychology-focussed text.
A terrific textbook! Incredibly thoughtful, thought-provoking and practical information that will inform much of how I approach my work with children of all ages and their families. In fact, I was directly applying so much of what I learned as I was getting through the text; I know that I am all the better as a caregiver/teacher for having read this book.
While this book does make use of scientific studies and research, so much of it is filled with personal opinion and the very liberal approach to education and childcare of modern times. At times when reading this book I thought its idealism overwhelmed its practical information or the benefit of experience. I often had to wade through pages filled with sentiment on gender stereotypes and so on just to get to anything useful. Still, there are useful sections and ideas in this book.
A really useful book. This book highlights the importance of respectful relationships with infants. With so many large Early Child centres it is vital to place an emphasis on high quality respectful relationships and the importance of higher teacher ratios. Encouraging owners to provide higher teacher ratios-- often enough profit is made to put money back into this high quality ECE Education
Awesome, super useful book. I like to be able to refer back to it as needed. I gained a significantly expanded perspective on infants and toddlers through this, and it's already helped me in interacting with them.
Okay this is a college textbook and still I'm rating it high. I really liked the setup of the book. It had positive viewpoints and was easy to read. I really liked Magda Gerbers quotes laced through the chapters. I'll read the book again when I feel the fire waning in my teaching.