Birth and Parenting Skills: New Directions in Antenatal Care. Mary Nolan & Julie Foster, editors. $49.95

A research-based account of the current status of antenatal education in the UK, Birth and Parenting Skills focuses on the key challenges faced by educators everywhere, and offers innovative suggestions for how these challenges might best be met. It describes approaches to accessing vulnerable groups of parents and how collaboration between medical, midwifery and educational models might result in a better service for pregnant women and their families. Effective and best practices are viewed within the principles and practices of adult education and how they should inform antenatal education.

Charting the Bumpy Road of Coparenthood: Understanding the Challenges of Family Life. James McHale, $39.50

Filled with interviews with new parents and observations of new parents and their babies, this major new study offers key information that clinicians, policymakers, and parents need to know about creating consistent and coordinated co-parenting strategies during pregnancy and in a child’s earliest years. Author James McHale, explains how parents work together—or don’t—to care for infants and young children, and how the quality of their co-parenting alliance affects toddlers’ social and emotional development.”

Developmental Parenting: a Guide for Early Childhood Practitioners. Lori Roggman, Lisa Boyce & Mark Innocenti, $35.50

When parents are warm, responsive, encouraging, and communicative—the key elements of developmental parenting—they lay the foundation for young children's school readiness, social competence, and mental health. That's why every early childhood professional needs this comprehensive, practical guide to building a developmental parenting program for the families they serve.

Unlike other approaches that limit parents to a "student" role, the proven parenting-focused model in this book shows home visitors how to put parents and other caregivers confidently in charge of guiding and supporting their young children's development. With this research-based and reader-friendly book, early childhood professionals will learn to put parents in charge of guiding their child's development—resulting in strong parent-child bonds, healthy families, and improved school readiness.

Dream Babies: Childcare Advice from John Locke to Gina Ford. Christina Hardyment, $32.50

Parents have long been bombarded with conflicting advice on how to bring up their babies: from Locke, Rousseau and King to Spock, Penelope Leach and Gina Ford. Behaviourist warnings in the 1920s about physical contact ('Never hug and kiss them. Never let them sit in your lap') swung to Jean Liedloff's 'continuum concept' that babies should be wrapped round mum and fed on demand. Who is right and who is wrong?

In this updated edition of her classic account of how and why the experts' advice has changed with changing times, Christina Hardyment analyses the anxieties of our own age and gives parents much-needed confidence in their own ability to choose the advice that best suits them and their babies.

Families That Flourish: Facilitating Resilience in Clinical Practice. Dorothy Becvar, $42.50

In Families that Flourish, Dorothy Becvar describes the characteristics of families that function successfully, even when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Using a therapeutic perspective that integrates the perceptions of the clients into the therapist's own clinical approach, Becvar emphasizes the importance of including in therapy a consideration of ways to facilitate resilience. Guidelines for working with a wide variety of families and situations are provided, with case examples illustrating concepts and therapeutic interventions.

The Incredible Years: a Trouble-Shooting Guide for Parents of Children Aged 3-8. Carolyn Webster-Stratton, $26.95

A practical and informative handbook, filled with examples of everyday problem situations and concerns. The Incredible Years provides guidelines to help parents deal with behavioral problems of children aged 3-8 years. Webster-Stratton's book is frequently used as the basic text in parent education groups.

Is This a Phase? Child Development & Parent Strategies, Birth to 6 Years. Helen Neville, $29.95

This reassuring and practical guide explains what to expect at every developmental stage between birth and age 6. Pediatric nurse and parent educator Helen Neville walks parents and caregivers through three dozen topics common in the first six years of life. Accurate, reliable and authoritative, Is This a Phase looks at child development and temperament and how they affect the family.

The Journey to Parenthood: Myths, Reality and What Really Matters. Diana Lynn Barnes & Leigh Balber, $42.50

New and expectant parents need support and confidence. The Journey to Parenthood is designed to provide that. It assists in exploring and analyzing thoughts and feelings about childbirth and being a parent. This book is about being realistic. It draws on the experiences of many parents from a wide range of backgrounds, to look at the different perceived expectations and cultural pressures imposed on new and expectant parents. It is full of helpful guidance to lead parents towards discovering the role that is right for them. Highly recommended for parents, health and social care professionals, therapists and counselors.

Parents with Intellectual Disabilities Past, Present and Futures. Edited by Gwynneth Llewellyn, et al, $59.95

The first international, cross-disciplinary book to explore and understand the lives of parents with intellectual disabilities, their children, and the systems and services they encounter.  The book presents a unique, pan-disciplinary overview of this growing field of study and offers a human rights approach to disability and family life. Informed by the newly adopted UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), the book provides comprehensive research-based knowledge from leading figures in the field of intellectual disability.

Pathways to Competence for Young Children: a Parenting Program (Book and CD-ROM). Sarah Landy & Elizabeth Thompson, $67.95

With Pathways to Competence for Young Children: a Parenting Program, professionals can help parents understand and manage their child’s behavior and take an active role in guiding social-emotional development. Developed from Sarah Landy’s highly regarded child development book, Pathways to Competence, this manual-and-CD set shows how to set up, lead, and evaluate a parenting program for parents of children from birth to age 7.

Everything professionals need to conduct a Pathways to Competence Parenting Group is included: more than 140 parent handouts (easy to print from the CD-ROM inside this book), instructions on structuring and leading sessions, problem-solving tips, and evaluation guidelines. With this engaging and effective program, parents will discover how to strengthen their relationships with their children and foster the healthy social-emotional development children need to manage life’s challenges.

Also: Pathways to Competence: Encouraging Healthy Social and Emotional Development in Young Children, 2nd Edition. Sarah Landy, $76.50

Play, Learning and Brain Development: You Can Make a Difference. Beatrice Ashem & Michelle Ashem, $29.95

Play, Learning and Brain Development is a ready-to-use, culturally-adaptable curriculum and guide to helping parents learn about their child’s development from birth to age three. Designed for a broad range of use, it can be employed as a complete set of workshops or adapted to existing programs. By relating current research data to traditional parenting practices, the curriculum teaches the effects of parenting practices on brain development in young children.

Play, Learning and Brain Development is currently being used in cities, small towns and isolated communities around the world by educators, nurses, early intervention staff, parents and other community workers. Sections include information, research and workshops on:

• Brain development in the early years
• Parenting as a key to brain development
• Early learning
• Barriers to healthy development and prevention strategies
• Maternal depression and other factors affecting development
• Child abuse and neglect
• Resources

The Role of the Father in Child Development. Edited by Michael Lamb, $114.00

The definitive reference on the importance role fathers play in child development today.

Sidestepping the Power Struggle: a Manual for Effective Parenting. Alison Miller & Allison Rees, $35.00

Sidestepping the Power Struggle is a comprehensive, detailed and extremely readable guide to parenting. While it is fun and easy to read, it brings a large measure of hope to those many parents who sometimes are at their wits’ end. Sidestepping the Power Struggle helps parents to understand their child’s inborn temperament. Understanding a child’s true nature makes deciding how to deal with the everyday problems and the major problem much less stressful. For parents who want to make a difference, this book is a well-balanced blend of theory, practical ideas and appropriate anecdotes.

Skills for Families, Skills for Life: How to Help Parents and Caregivers Meet the Challenges of Everyday Living. Amy Simpson, Paula Kohrt, Linda Shadoin, Joni Cook-Griffin & Jane Peterson, $24.95

This revised and expanded edition of Skills for Families, Skills for Life can help family practitioners and other professionals incorporate the teaching of life skills into the assessment of and treatment planning for the families they work with. More than one hundred thirty basic to complex skills in thirteen caregiving areas are outlined in step-by-step detail. Skills areas have expanded to include:

• Relationships
• Mental Health Needs
• Preventing Abuse
• Community Safety
• Housing
• Money Management
• Informal and Formal Supports
• Education

An enclosed CD-ROM allows you to print skill sheets to use as checklists, make notes, and list resources as you counsel individual families. A new chapter also helps you locate public and private, local and national sources of assistance for families.

Supporting Postnatal Women into Motherhood: a Guide to Therapeutic Groupwork for Health Professionals. Lynn Bertram, $51.95

This book describes setting up and managing a discussion group for new mothers to provide support and introduce women to others at the same life stage in a safe environment. It shows how facilitating this structured activity can be positive and empowering for all concerned. It is practical and stimulating reading for everyone involved professionally with postnatal women. Contents include:

• Background and preparations for a postnatal group
• The world of motherhood
• Maternal health
• Planning the group
• Managing the group
• Expectations and reality
• Roles of motherhood
• Changes in relationships
• Parenting style
• Focus on feelings
• Building self-esteem