The author explores the reflective components of observation, listening, wondering, and response. Together, these components invite parents to discover who their babies are as well as to understand the importance of nurturing relationships, past and present, to development, growth, and change. Of equal interest, reflective practice offers Infant…

When a mother has a severe and chronic mental illness, her pathway ahead as a parent can be fragile and uncertain. This article describes a therapeutic support group for women with mental illness and reveals how individual women responded to a group that was created to support them in the parenting role. Periods of silence followed by palpable…

Parents who love their children sometimes harm them. They harm them by physically or sexually abusing them and by failing to provide the nurturance that children have the right to expect. They neglect and abuse their children because they lack the necessary combination of knowledge, patience, empathy, and problem-solving capabilities. Intervening…

Becoming a parent after experiencing infertility can pose unique challenges to early parenthood. Parents may struggle with the normal anxiety and fatigue, as well as possible depression, that accompany new parenthood, but with added guilt or shame because of how much they wanted a child and how hard they worked to become parents. These feelings…

Sensitive parenting and secure attachment can serve as protective factors against developmental risks associated with high-risk environments such as homelessness and shelter living. This article describes a program for mothers with children from birth to 3 years old whose families are living in shelters and who are enrolled in PACT: Helping…

Pregnancy and new parenthood is a time that is life forming for infants as well as parents. Teenagers' own development is challenged by their parental development. This article looks back at 13 years of doula services and lessons from a statewide network of doulas serving teenage parents. The author illustrates how doulas can use an approach that…

The Fussy Baby Network, a program of the Erikson Institute, partnered with a local church to engage Latino families in a group drop-in program designed to offer parenting education, support, and early intervention services. The group format provides a safe and trusting environment where parents decrease feelings of isolation, offer support to one…

Great Expectation and New Beginnings is a prenatal family support program run by the Family, Infant, and Preschool Program (FIPP) in North Carolina. FIPP has developed an evidence-based integrated framework of early childhood intervention and family support that includes three primary components: providing intervention in everyday family…

Women are particularly vulnerable in the peripartum period for either developing a mental illness or suffering symptom exacerbation. These illnesses are often experienced covertly, however, and women may not seek out professional help, even though their symptoms may be seriously affecting their well-being and parenting. This article provides an…

This article describe one of the most robust notions from temperament research: "finding the fit" between the temperaments of child and caregiver. The authors provide parents with a series of questions to help them identify their child's temperament and suggestions for how to adapt to their child's style. (Note: This article is excerpted from the…

This article examines whether the idea of "temperament" is a useful construct for families to understand babies' and toddlers' behavior. The author suggests that "regulatory skill" may be a more neutral term than temperament for parents and practitioners to use in discussing individual differences among babies and toddlers and suggests that…

In this article, seven families describe their experiences giving birth to and raising a premature baby. Their perspectives vary, one from another, and shift over time, depending on each family's circumstances and the baby's developmental course. Experiences discussed include premature labor, medical interventions and the NICU, bringing the baby…

The authors report findings from the Father Involvement with Toddlers Study (FITS) of low-income fathers. The study sought to learn about biological fathers and father figures of children eligible for Early Head Start (EHS). FITS data suggest that, compared to older fathers, teen fathers are more highly invested in their children, enjoy…

The number of children who are adopted from foreign orphanages is on the rise in the U.S. Children who are reared in orphanages face a host of challenges to their healthy development and to their ability to form close, satisfying attachments with their new parents. The authors describe a group intervention used by the Yale International …

In this article, the creator of the transactional model and a colleague give an overview of how the model emerged as well as its principal elements. For most of the 20th century, scientists believed that brain damage was the cause of a child's cognitive, social, or emotional problems. Later, researchers found that babies were likely to have…