Featured Resources for Grown Ups
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Baby and Toddler Basics: Expert Answers to Parents' Top 150 Questions
Parents of babies and toddlers from birth to age three will find answers to their most-frequently asked questions about child health and wellness in this easy-to-understand volume. Tanya Altmann, MD, FAAP, helps parents with friendly, straightforward guidance in an easily digestible question and answer format.
Baby and Toddler Basics focuses on parents’ top 150 questions, based on Dr. Tanya's years in practice. An internet search of these questions could yield dozens of answers, many from dubious sources. Dr. Tanya addresses parents’ concerns with the expertise of a pediatrician backed by the trusted authority of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Baby and Toddler Basics’ clear Q&A layout means it’s just as fast as Googling, but with answers parents can trust, based on medically-sound AAP policy.
Topics covered in Baby and Toddler Basics include
• Breastfeeding
• Developmental stages
• Fever
• First Aid and injuries
• General baby care
• Poop
• Safe sleep and sleep challenges
• Stomach ache and illness
• Vaccines
Dr. Tanya’s clear answers to these frequently asked questions will help parents take the right actions at home and alert them when it would be best to call their pediatrician. With Baby and Toddler Basics parents can keep their own “portable pediatrician” in their diaper bag or on their nightstand, always ready with reassuring answers. -
The Complete Guide to Baby Sign Language
The complete resource for communicating with your baby!
Whether you're new to signing with your baby or looking to expand both of your vocabularies, The Complete Guide to Baby Sign Language--from TinySigns® founder Lane Rebelo--makes it a snap. Featuring more than 200 American Sign Language (ASL) signs, this book will have you and your little one signing up a storm.
Infants and toddlers can use sign language well before they can speak, offering an exciting opportunity for the two of you to communicate in deeper and more complete ways. Start things off with baby sign language essentials--like "eat," "more," and "all done"--then move on to more complex ideas--like different foods, the outside world, opposites, and emotions.
The Complete Guide to Baby Sign Language includes:
- Songs and activities-- Incorporate baby sign language into everyday fun and master advanced signing concepts.
- Fully illustrated--Detailed illustrations simplify the learning process and make sure both of you are signing perfectly.
- Advanced tips--Get helpful advice and practical tools (including memory tips and baby sign approximations) that show how easy teaching your baby sign language it can be.
Discover a new way to truly connect with your baby using The Complete Guide to Baby Sign Language.
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The No-Cry Sleep Solution, Second Edition
The classic, best-selling no-tears guide to making sure your baby—and you—get a full night’s sleep has been updated – it is now easier to use and has been expanded to include more solutions plus critical new safety information.
Nearly all babies fight sleep. Some people argue that parents should let their baby “cry it out” until the child falls asleep; others say parents should tough it out from dusk until dawn. Neither tactic fosters happiness in the family. The No-Cry Sleep Solution gives parents a third option: a proven method to pin-point the root of sleep problems and solve them in a way that is gentle to babies, effective for parents, and provides peace in the home.
One of today’s leading experts on children’s sleep, Elizabeth Pantley delivers clear, step-by-step ideas for guiding your child to a good night's sleep—without any crying. This parenting classic shows how to decipher—and work with—your baby's biological sleep rhythms, create a customized plan for getting your child to sleep through the night, nap well during the day, and teach your baby to fall asleep peacefully, and stay asleep, without all-night breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, or requiring a parent’s care all through the night.
And now, this updated edition is even easier to follow. It provides important new guidelines on safety (bedsharing, pacifiers, swings, slings, swaddling and more), and an expanded chapter specifically about newborns. It covers every sleep issue that occurs in the first few years and answers parents’ common questions about white noise, back-sleeping, SIDS, day care, naps, nightwaking, bedsharing, dealing with strong-willed babies, working with caregivers, troubleshooting sleep issues, and more!
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The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read
"A beautifully comprehensive look at what it might mean to be a sane and emotionally intelligent parent . . . hugely warm, wise, hopeful and encouraging."--Alain de Botton, author of How Proust Can Change Your Life
Instant #1 Sunday Times Bestseller
Every parent wants their child to be happy and every parent wants to avoid screwing them up (the way their parents did!). But how do you do that?
In this absorbing, clever, and warm book, renowned psychotherapist Philippa Perry tells us what really matters and what behavior it is important to avoid--the vital dos and don'ts of parenting.
Her approach begins with parents themselves and their own psychological make-up and history--and how that in turn influences one's parenting.
Instead of mapping out the "perfect" plan, Perry offers a big-picture look at the elements that lead to good parent-child relationships. This refreshing judgement-free book will help you to:
• Understand how your own upbringing may affect your parenting
• Accept that you will make mistakes and learn what you can do about them
• Break negative cycles and patterns
• Handle your own and child's feelings
• Understand what different behaviors communicate
Full of sage and sane advice, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read is one every parent will want to read and every child will wish their parents had.
A PAMELA DORMAN BOOKS/VIKING LIFE TITLE -
How to Raise Kind Kids
Can you teach a child to be kind?
This vital question is taking on a new urgency as our culture grows ever more abrasive and divided.
We all want our kids to be kind. But that is not the same as knowing what to do when you catch your son being unkind. A world-renowned developmental psychologist, Dr. Thomas Lickona has led the character education movement in schools for forty years. Now he shares with parents the vital tools they need to bring peace and foster cooperation at home. Kindness doesn’t stand on its own. It needs a supporting cast of other essential virtues—like courage, self-control, respect, and gratitude.
With concrete examples drawn from the many families Dr. Lickona has worked with over the years and clear tips you can act on tonight, How to Raise Kind Kids will help you give and get respect, hold family meetings to tackle persistent problems, discipline in a way that builds character, and improve the dynamic of your relationship with your children while putting them on the path to a happier and more fulfilling life. -
Growing Pains
A sanity-saving guide to parenting and child development
Raising kids is hard, and the rules, behaviors, and patterns seem to change as they get older. It's enough to make any parent feel irritated, overwhelmed, or exasperated--and that's okay. Growing Pains brings you age- and stage-specific strategies to keep you from feeling helpless. Tantrums, sulking, rule enforcement--this book will assist you in navigating the ups and downs of child development with a clear head on your shoulders.
You'll learn a variety of techniques designed to help you deal with common kid conundrums like lying, not sharing, separation anxiety, and others. Through it all, you'll get the support you need to be there for your kid as they grow up.
This parenting book on child development includes:
- Proven Strategies--Learn how to deal with topics like anger fits and pouting in a reasonable manner with careful methods.
- Ages 4 to 10--Age-by-age chapters to guide you along this journey of child development with each passing year.
- Moments of sanity--Suggestions for keeping your cool when things get a little perplexing and overwhelming.
Apply these effective parenting tactics during difficulties with child development and keep the peace within your home.
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Discipline with Love and Limits
"The tools in this beloved book change everyday struggles into teachable moments." -- Wendy Webb, Mother, Grandmother, and National Trainer, Parents as TeachersFilled with parent-tested advice for over 100 asked-for behaviors, including:
Screen Addiction - Bullying - Temper Tantrums - Won't Listen - Whining - Not Eating - Jealousy - Biting - Lying - Talking Back - Testing Limits - Won't Go to Bed - Clinging - Interrupting - Won't Do Homework - Sibling Rivalry...and more!
With over 1 million copies sold, this updated and completely revised bestseller is the only pediatrician-recommended guide for what to do and what not to do in encouraging, respectful ways when responding to everyday behavior challenges of toddlers to teens. Practical solutions on each page teach empathy and inclusiveness, reduce stress and anxiety, build positive relationships, and empower children to thrive emotionally and physically. -
Raising Good Humans
"A wise and fresh approach to mindful parenting."
--Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance
A kinder, more compassionate world starts with kind and compassionate kids. In Raising Good Humans, you'll find powerful and practical strategies to break free from "reactive parenting" habits and raise kind, cooperative, and confident kids.Whether you're running late for school, trying to get your child to eat their vegetables, or dealing with an epic meltdown in the checkout line at a grocery store--being a parent is hard work! And, as parents, many of us react in times of stress without thinking--often by yelling. But what if, instead of always reacting on autopilot, you could respond thoughtfully in those moments, keep your cool, and get from A to B on time and in one piece?
With this book, you'll find powerful mindfulness skills for calming your own stress response when difficult emotions arise. You'll also discover strategies for cultivating respectful communication, effective conflict resolution, and reflective listening. In the process, you'll learn to examine your own unhelpful patterns and ingrained reactions that reflect the generational habits shaped by your parents, so you can break the cycle and respond to your children in more skillful ways.
When children experience a parent reacting with kindness and patience, they learn to act with kindness as well--thereby altering generational patterns for a kinder, more compassionate future. With this essential guide, you'll see how changing your own "autopilot reactions" can create a lasting positive impact, not just for your kids, but for generations to come.
An essential, must-read for all parents--now more than ever.
"To raise the children we hope to raise, we have to learn to become the person we hoped to be.... This wonderful book will help you handle the ride."
--KJ Dell'Antonia, author of How to Be a Happier Parent
"Hunter Clarke-Fields shares her wisdom and personal experience to help parents create peaceful families."
--Joanna Faber and Julie King, coauthors of How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen
Children's Services

Reducing trauma to children during abuse investigations

Investigating of and reporting child abuse and neglect

The Family Literacy Center of Lapeer is a 501c3 organization providing one-to-one and small group tutoring for adults in the thumb area of Michigan, helping people in our community reach their literacy and employment goals.

Support group for friends and families of loved ones on the Autism spectrum

810-667-4175 help line; 810-667-4193 general line
Emergency shelter for women and children