Taking Back Childhood

An early childhood development expert shows how to craft a nurturing childhood for your sons and daughters, while minimizing negative societal influences.

Based on early-childhood development expert Nancy Carlsson-Paige’s thirty years of researching young children, this groundbreaking book helps parents navigate the cultural currents shaping, and too often harming, kids today—and restore childhood to the best of what it can be. As Carlsson-Paige explains, there are three attributes critical to kids’ healthy development: time and space for creative play, a feeling of safety in today’s often frightening world, and strong, meaningful relationships with both adults and other children—attributes that we, as a society, are failing to protect and nurture. From advising parents on which toys foster creativity (and which stifle it) to guiding them in how to use “power-sharing” techniques to resolve conflicts and generate empathy, Carlsson-Paige offers hands-on steps parents can take to create a safe, open, and imaginative environment in which kids can relish childhood and flourish as human beings.

“Dr. Carlsson-Paige explains the many ways our culture and media are threatening our children’s healthy development. She gives adults concrete strategies for fighting back. Today’s parents need this book.”—Marian Wright Edelman, Children’s Defense Fund“Dr. Carlsson-Paige explains the many ways our culture and media are threatening our children’s healthy development. She gives adults concrete strategies for fighting back. Today’s parents need this book.”—Marian Wright Edelman, Children’s Defense Fund
 
“Brims with practical advice for the challenges parents face today. Nancy Carlsson-Paige speaks with emotional wisdom.”—Daniel Goleman, author of the New York Times bestsellers Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence
 
“Practical advice for parents who want to build better—nonviolent, caring, creative—relationships with their children.”—Publishers WeeklyNancy Carlsson-Paige, ED.D., is a professor of early-childhood education and conflict resolution at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an active public speaker. Her work has been featured in Time, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and on NPR, CBS, and ABC.