Happiest Toddler on the Block: How to Eliminate Tantrums and Raise a Patient, Respectful, and Cooperative One- to Four-Year-Old: Revised Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Harvey Md Karp
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy New: $14.28
You Save: $9.72 (40%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 321440
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0553805215
Dewey Decimal Number: 649.122
EAN: 9780553805215
ASIN: 0553805215
Publication Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
Toddlers can drive you bonkers…so adorable and fun one minute…so stubborn and demanding the next! Yet, as unbelievable as it sounds, there is a way to turn the daily stream of “nos” and “don’ts” into “yeses” and hugs…if you know how to speak your toddler’s language. In one of the most useful advances in parenting techniques of the past twenty-five years, Dr. Karp reveals that toddlers, with their immature brains and stormy outbursts, should be thought of not as pint-size people but as pintsize…cavemen.
Having noticed that the usual techniques often failed to calm crying toddlers, Dr. Karp discovered that the key to effective communication was to speak to them in their own primitive language. When he did, suddenly he was able to soothe their outbursts almost every time! This amazing success led him to the realization that children between the ages of one and four go through four stages of “evolutionary” growth, each linked to the development of the brain, and each echoing a step in prehistoric humankind’s journey to civilization:
• The “Charming Chimp-Child” (12 to 18 months): Wobbles around on two legs, grabs everything in reach, plays a nonstop game of “monkey see monkey do.”
• The “Knee-High Neanderthal” (18 to 24 months): Strong-willed, fun-loving, messy, with a vocabulary of about thirty words, the favorites being “no” and “mine.”
• The “Clever Caveman” (24 to 36 months):
Just beginning to learn how to share, make friends, take turns, and use the potty.
• The “Versatile Villager” (36 to 48 months): Loves to tell stories, sing songs and dance, while trying hard to behave.
To speak to these children, Dr. Karp has developed two extraordinarily effective techniques:
1) The “fast food” rule—restating what your child has said to make sure you got it right;
2) The four-step rule—using gesture, repetition, simplicity, and tone to help your
irate Stone-Ager be happy again.
Once you’ve mastered “toddler-ese,” you will be ready to apply behavioral techniques specific to each stage of your child’s development, such as teaching patience and calm, doing time-outs (and time-ins), praise through “gossiping,” and many other strategies. Then all the major challenges of the toddler years—including separation anxiety, sibling rivalry, toilet training, night fears, sleep problems, picky eating, biting and hitting, medicine taking — can be handled in a way that will make your toddler feel understood. The result: fewer tantrums, less yelling, and, best of all, more happy, loving time for you and your child.
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| Customer Reviews:
Very good ideas from the man who saved my sanity during the newborn phase November 14, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Dr. Karp's "Happiest Baby on the Block" book got me through the newborn phase, so this was the first toddler book I went to. It was a very interesting read. His basic premise is that toddlers are little cavepeople: the right side of their brain, which deals with language and logic, is not very developed, while the left side, which is very emotional, calls most of the shots. He talks a lot about how parents have to be an ambassador: keep relations happy, while putting their foot down when it really matters. He divides toddler behavior into three categories: "green light" behaviors, which are positive and should be encouraged; "yellow light" behaviors, which are the annoying but not completely unacceptable things toddlers do (whining, for example); and "red light" behaviors which are unacceptable because they are either dangerous or they disobey a key family rule. He gives a great deal of advice on how to deal with each of these three types.
I thought that this was a very honest book about parenting a toddler, despite the fact that some of the things that he said were rather jarring. Some of his advice is very much in opposite to other books, and what I think most parents think is the "right" way to parent. For example, he really emphasizes making compromises, and in at least one example encourages some white lies. Not exactly the type of advice I expect from a parenting book. But this also made it more realistic than other suggestions I've read about raising a toddler. Toddlers don't have the logic skills of an adult, and realistically you have to pick your battles.
The most interesting part of the book to me, and the main reason I think that this book is worth reading, is about talking at your toddler's level when he or she is upset. Karp points out that parents are usually very comfortable talking in toddler-ese when their child is happy, but when their child is upset they try to talk in a calming voice. This backfires, because they are using complex sentences, long words, and a monotonous voice that can be hard for a toddler to understand. So the toddler gets even MORE frustrated and upset. I thought that his solutions for dealing with this problem were well worth reading.
I haven't read the old edition, so I can't comment on what changes were made.
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