How to protect your children from popular culture.

Sports are an amazing environment in which to raise children. The benefits they gain from athletic participation are many, including physical, personal, and social. Yet, there is also a dark side to today’s youth sports culture, as an emphasis on winning has made what was once fun become a burden for many young athletes. As a result, parents can’t always be certain their children’s athletic involvement will be safe and enjoyable. In Raising Young Athletes: Parenting Your Children to Victory in Sports and Life, Dr. Jim Taylor—an internationally-recognized authority on sport psychology, child development, and parenting—offers a guiding hand to help parents ensure their children’s sports participation encourages positive attitudes and promotes healthy developments as they move toward adulthood. The role of parents in shaping their children’s sports experience has never been more important, and Dr. Taylor shows parents how to send the right messages to their young athletes with clear and practical advice. Whether playing sports just for fun or with aspirations to play professionally, Raising Young Athletes helps parents steer their children toward a healthy, positive experience. As such, their participation will become an impactful part of their lives that will prepare them to be victorious both in sports and in life.

Research is increasingly showing the effects of family, school, and culture on the social, emotional and personality development of children. Much of this research concentrates on grade school and above, but the most profound effects may occur much earlier, in the 0-3 age range. This volume consists of focused articles from the authoritative Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development that specifically address this topic and collates research in this area in a way that isn't readily available in the existent literature, covering such areas as adoption, attachment, birth order, effects of day care, discipline and compliance, divorce, emotion regulation, family influences, preschool, routines, separation anxiety, shyness, socialization, effects of television, etc. This one volume reference provides an essential, affordable reference for researchers, graduate students and clinicians interested in social psychology and personality, as well as those involved with cultural psychology and developmental psychology. - Presents literature on influences of families, school, and culture in one source saving users time searching for relevant related topics in multiple places and literatures in order to fully understand any one area - Focused content on age 0-3- save time searching for and wading through lit on full age range for developmentally relevant info - Concise, understandable, and authoritative for immediate applicability in research

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.