Television & Media, Parenting Expert
Meri Wallace, LCSW, a parenting expert, and child and family therapist for over thirty years, writes a blog for Psychology Today, and is the author of Birth Order Blues (Henry Holt and Co.) and Keys to Parenting Your Four Year Old (Barron’s Educational Series). She is currently publishing her third book, The Secret World of Children. This book helps parents to understand nine developmental reasons for their children’s challenging behavior and how to handle these issues positively.
Ms. Wallace has been a columnist for Sesame Street Parents Magazine, New York Family Magazine and Brooklyn Parent. She has been a consultant to Children’s Television Workshop and has been interviewed by national magazines including Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Parents and many more.
Birth order has a powerful effect on children’s emotional development, on their self-esteem, and on their sense of well-being. The youngest child, the firstborn, the middle born, twins, and the only child all have specific birth order issues that, if not attended to early on, can impair their functioning and their interpersonal relations at home and at school, and can follow them into adulthood.
The world of the four-year-old is expanding. Typical four-year-olds confront challenges and relationships that are often new and perplexing to them and to their parents. Barron’s Parenting Keys Series speaks to today’s parents, with answers to today’s problems. Described are the average four-year-old’s abilities, patterns of response, and potential problems and special needs.
Children’s behavior is often confusing, scary and even maddening at times! Parents want to respond positively to their children, but they are unsure about what is happening and what to do or say.
The Secret World of Children acts as a life preserver for parents in a sea of confusion. In this book, parents will learn that nine natural developmental issues are the underlying cause of their children’s behavior, for instance the need for love, curiosity, aggression, and others.
Understanding these issues and using the positive tools in this book to handle challenging behaviors related to natural development, boosts parents’ self-confidence and enables them to raise their children to feel loved- the main goal of this book.
At a time of tremendous unrest in the world and the need to repair human relationships, raising children to feel loved is the key.
This book therefore is at the core of healing the world- one child at a time.
Dear Parents,
It is out of my love for children and families, and my commitment to bettering the world we live in, that I have undertaken to write The Secret World of Children.
With a sparkle in their eyes, a joyful smile and an exuberance for life, children enter the world and embrace all its wonders. I believe that raising our beautiful children to feel loved is the major goal of parenting and is essential to children’s well-being. The key to successful parenting is understanding your children’s often bewildering and sometimes troubling behavior, so you can respond supportively and lovingly.
The book will reveal nine natural developmental issues that I discovered in my work as a child and family therapist, that are the underlying cause of your children’s behaviors. Once you understand what they are, you will feel calmer. Your child is not crazy or bad, just being a normal child! I will also give you a treasure chest of positive communication skills including specific phrases and actions to take in response to your child’s most challenging behaviors that will empower you and boost your self-confidence.
Most importantly, as you understand your children and respond to each part of them in a loving way, your children will internalize your caring messages and develop a sense of wholeness and deep self-love. Your child will feel, “I am good, I am valuable – I may need to change my behavior, but I am loved.”
This approach to parenting can also benefit the world. When children are raised in a supportive, gentle, instructive way, they transfer their love for you and themselves to others, and view people as kind, caring, and trustworthy. This enables them to form healthy relationships and move through the world treating others with respect and acceptance. It is my belief that as you raise your children with this caring approach, you will heal some of the world’s most troubling problems such as racism, greed and wars – you will be helping to fix the world one child at a time.
With love,
Columnist, Sesame Street Parents
Contributor, American Baby
Blogger, Psychology Today
Each child may have unique emotional experiences The news has been ablaze with stories about the birth of Prince Louis, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s
Your loving care helps her to feel safe and trust others Children come into the world with certain basic emotional needs: the need to feel
It is important for children to learn how to fall asleep on their own Do you find yourself all twisted up from sleeping on the floor of
