Parenting Made Easy: The early years

Dr Anna Cohen

Kids & Co



A bag of tricks approach to parenting the 1 to 5 year old

The early years of parenting are often a tricky and challenging time - a time when you will watch your baby fade and a child emerge, a time of amazing growth, development and change. Your 'bag of tricks' to deal with these changes must take into account your child's development and cognitive abilities at any given stage.

Parenting Made Easy: The Early Years provides ideas for your bag of tricks that have worked for thousands of families to foster children's positive self-identity. The strategies advocated promote positive nurturing relationships while equipping parents with skills to manage problem behaviour.

Children, by virtue of being children, will make behavioural errors and so it is the job of
parents to love and believe in them and to model and teach respectful communication. Such authoritative parenting is characterised by firm, warm, expectations with clear limit setting while encouraging independent thinking and displaying unconditional love.

Parenting Made Easy: The Early Years will help you become the sort of parent you want to be by celebrating your resourcefulness and finding effective solutions to the challenge of parenting the preschooler.

Buy the ebook edition for $14.99

About the Author

Anna Cohen is a senior clinical psychologist who has worked with children, young people and families for over 20 years in both government and non-government organisations. She specialises
in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of children and young people presenting with psychiatric, emotional and behavioural problems, and in assisting parents implement parent management strategies. She is co-founder of the Kids & Co clinical psychology practices in Sydney and surrounding suburbs.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter 1: Development
The early years
Birth to five years
Characteristics of the child during the early years 6
Building your bag of tricks
  • Chapter 2: Attunement and the development of strong relationships
Attuned parenting
Mindful parenting
Simple mindfulness strategy
The brain
Building your bag of tricks
  • Chapter 3: Raising emotionally intelligent children
Window of tolerance
Cultivating emotional intelligence
Affirming messages during the early years
Building your bag of tricks
Development and affirming messages
  • Chapter 4: Responding to your child's developmental needs
Commonly misunderstood behaviours
Encouraging desirable behaviour7
Child-centred time
Building your bag of tricks
  • Chapter 5: Acknowledging desirable behaviour and reflecting feelings
Effective acknowledgement
Ways to acknowledge
Proximity
Attachment rich and attachment neutral engagement
Be consistent
Reflecting feelings
Building your bag of tricks
  • Chapter 6: Giving effective instructions and choices
The typical escalation trap
Typical requests made
How to stop the escalation trap
Simple steps for effective instruction giving
Terminating instructions
The in-charge parent
Using choices with your child
How to make instructions effective
Building your bag of tricks
  • Chapter 7: Managing parenting challenge
Consequences
Avoiding arguments
Reduce negative emotional expression
Planned ignoring
Logical consequences
Quiet time
Cool down
Post-incident discussion
Managing high-risk situations
Calming strategies
Building your bag of tricks
  • Chapter 8: Pulling it all together - your bag of tricks
Tips for encouraging considerate behaviour
Tips for discouraging inconsiderate behaviour
Parenting tips
  • References