Parenting Guide to Your Toddler

by Paula Spencer, Parenting Magazine

LET THE EDITORS OF PARENTING MAGAZINE HELP YOU
GET THE MOST FROM THE TODDLER YEARS!

Expert guidance and smart, hands-on advice have made PARENTING magazine the preferred child-care resource for today's parents. The PARENTING books offer the same great mix of helpful, practical information and reassurance on raising children today. Now, PARENTING Guide to Your Toddler offers a step-by-step resource to the most challenging stage of your child's

Developmental Your child's first complete sentence, first friend, first tricycle - Growth patterns, physical coordination, and identifying developmental delays - The fast-changing emotional life of the toddler
The Myth of the "Terrible Twos": Understanding how and why a toddler declares independence - Choices and self-control - Dealing with fears, clinginess, and aggressive behavior
Health and Common toddler ailments - Scheduling immunizations - Safety away from home
Daily Why regular family meals matter - Delicious, healthy snacks - Stress-free bedtimes and well-timed naps

The Do's and Don'ts of Dealing with tantrums in public places - Choosing your battles (and letting your toddler win some) - Using "time-out" effectively
Having Fun Identifying your child's unique "play style" - Activities toddlers enjoy most - Chores your toddler will love to do

Genres: Nonfiction, Parenting

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 2000

About the author

Paula Patyk Spencer is an American journalist and author specializing in parenting, family life, pregnancy, and women's health. She has written or co-authored numerous books and over 400 articles for national magazines. Spencer was a contributing editor for the former Parenting Magazine and has also contributed to Baby Talk Magazine and Woman’s Day.
A native of Warren, Michigan, Spencer graduated from the University of Iowa before pursuing a career in publishing. She worked as an editor in New York City and Knoxville, Tennessee, before becoming an editorial director at Whittle Communications, where she oversaw health, parenting, travel, and lifestyle publications.
Spencer has been a senior editor at Caring.com, a website supporting adult children caring for aging parents, and has also written the Momfidence! blog on Warner Brothers’ Momlogic.com. Her expertise has led to appearances on The CBS Early Show and Oprah!. She has been a guest lecturer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and has spoken at numerous conferences and events on writing and parenting.
Her work has been recognized with several awards, including the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Media Award and the National Women’s Political Caucus Emma Award. Among her books are Momfidence! and Everything Else You Need to Know When You're Expecting, as well as collaborations with experts such as Dr. Harvey Karp (The Happiest Toddler on the Block) and Dr. Tracy Gaudet (Body, Soul, and Baby).

Reviews

[Becca Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ideas in this book are not earthshaking. A lot of it is common sense, common knowledge, and there are a couple of outdated items. It’s fairly well organized and despite being simple in content, it was helpful in practice.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like this book. It emphasizes a very practical/flexible approach to parenting. The book also includes a lot of really interesting information on mental and emotional development of toddlers that I really appreciated. There are lots of supposedly-real anecdotes about supposedly-real parents dealing with toddler phobias and lost loveys and other issues, that are presented in a format that feels like those conversations that mothers get into with one another all of the time (e.g. My baby refuses to let me feed him with a spoon anymore. What do I do?). This makes the book feel reassuring and helpful, though it doesn't necessarily have clear-cut answers for everything. Most answers have some version of telling you that you should pick your battles carefully and allow yourself to be adaptable, which seems to me to be a more realistic way of parenting then always having mental lists of rules and schedules that are being strictly adhered to (Some of the books seem to want you to be the business-like CEO of you family, and leave out the possibility of staying in your pajamas till noon so that you can blow raspberries on your baby's belly and build block towers to knock down).
One minor gripe-- lots of typos (at least in my edition). As a total snob, I sometimes had trouble giving the book a chance because I was distracted by the errors. (It was compiled by the "editors" of parenting magazine-- why weren't they doing their job?)

[Scarlett harring · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate how it was set up.