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5 - Reading, Rhymes, and Routines: American Parents and Their Young Children
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- By Pia Rebello Britto, Research Scientist Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University, Allison Sidle Fuligni, Research Scientist Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Professor of Child Development and Education; Co-Director Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University Institute of Child and Family Policy; Director Columbia University Institute of Child and Family Policy
- Edited by Neal Halfon, University of California, Los Angeles, Kathryn Taaffe McLearn, Columbia University, New York, Mark A. Schuster, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Book:
- Child Rearing in America
- Published online:
- 15 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 08 July 2002, pp 117-145
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Summary
The past few years have witnessed a renewed interest in early child development. The Carnegie Corporation's Starting Points (1994) and Years of Promise (1996) reports, the creation of a National Goals Panel and the Goals 2000 legislation of 1994, and President Clinton's early childhood initiative (1997) all provide evidence of increasing awareness of the importance of early experiences. Two White House conferences have focused on early childhood development and on child care. Media attention–including an entire issue of Newsweek devoted to the early years, a prime-time television documentary on early development, and numerous television news shows, newspaper articles, and magazine pieces–have conveyed the message that what happens in children's early years is strongly associated with their school readiness, achievement, and adolescent functioning.
During the early years, children make great strides in emotional regulation and the acquisition of gross motor, fine motor, language, cognitive, and social skills. Parents and committed caregivers are the primary providers of experiences associated with those developments. For example, parents provide cognitive and linguistic experiences through activities such as looking at books, encouraging communication, and exposing children to a range of auditory and visual stimuli Bradley (1995; Snow 1993). When parents exhibit warmth through actions such as hugging and cuddling, they influence their children's development of relationships and emotional well-being Barnard and Martell (1995). Finally, through regularity and consistency in daily routines, parents provide continuity and stability, conditions thought to be important to children Boyce et al. (1983).
4 - Meeting the Challenges of New Parenthood: Responsibilities, Advice, and Perceptions
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- By Allison Sidle Fuligni, Research Scientist Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Professor of Child Development and Education; Co-Director Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University; Director Columbia University Institute of Child and Family Policy
- Edited by Neal Halfon, University of California, Los Angeles, Kathryn Taaffe McLearn, Columbia University, New York, Mark A. Schuster, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Book:
- Child Rearing in America
- Published online:
- 15 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 08 July 2002, pp 83-116
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Summary
How do American parents respond to the changes involved in becoming a new parent? In this chapter, we consider three main questions: How do parents divide the responsibilities of daily care for the very young child? What different sources do parents use to obtain information and advice about parenting? and How well do parents feel they are handling their parenting responsibilities? All parents who participated in the Commonwealth Fund Survey of Parents with Young Children had a child under the age of three, so all had recently experienced the transition to being a new parent. The data from the Commonwealth Fund survey offer some of the only nationally representative data on these issues and provide a picture of child rearing in American families today.
THE CHALLENGE OF NEW PARENTHOOD
The transition to parenthood is a life-changing event. New parents are suddenly responsible for the care of a virtually helpless infant, who requires feeding, changing, and soothing 24 hours a day. Caring for a very young child is physically demanding, emotionally intense, and continuous; the transition to being a new parent is therefore both physically and emotionally challenging (Antonucci and Mikus 1998). Lack of sleep alone, part of the lives of all new parents, and often a new experience for them, may affect parents' perceptions of how well they are doing in their new roles and the help or advice they feel they need.
24 - Early Childhood Intervention Programs: What About the Family?
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- By Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University, Lisa J. Berlin, Columbia University, Allison Sidle Fuligni, Columbia University
- Edited by Jack P. Shonkoff, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Samuel J. Meisels, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- Foreword by Edward F. Zigler, Yale University, Connecticut
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- Book:
- Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention
- Published online:
- 05 November 2011
- Print publication:
- 22 May 2000, pp 549-588
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Summary
Early childhood development (defined as occurring from birth, or before birth, through ages 6 to 7) is increasingly being viewed as the foundation of adolescent and young adult cognitive and emotional functioning. In the first half of the 1990s, evidence of the interest in enhancing early development included the Carnegie Corporation's pair of reports, Starting Points (1994) and Years of Promise (1996), the creation in 1990 of a National Goals Panel and the Goals 2000 legislation of 1994 (centering on the goal that “by the year 2000 all children will start school ready to learn”), and President Clinton's Early Childhood Initiative. A theme common to each of these endeavors is the importance of early experiences – especially supportive relationships and intellectual stimulation – for later development (Brooks-Gunn, 1997).
By the fall of 1997, excitement surrounding the early childhood years was palpable. The President and First Lady had just completed two White House Conferences on early childhood, the first on early development, with a focus on brain growth and the importance of stimulation and relationships, and the second on child care, with a focus on the need for quality care. An entire issue of Newsweek was devoted to the early years. Scholars who usually toiled in relative anonymity were showing up on television talk shows, becoming, if only for a moment, famed “talking heads.” A documentary on early development by actor and director Rob Reiner was aired on prime-time television.