Table of Contents

Preface to the Revised Edition

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1
You Are Your Child’s First Teacher
A Unique Opportunity • Parents’ Dilemma Today • Cultural Dilemmas • Lack of Support for Mothering • Children Are Not Tiny Adults! • The Child’s Changing Consciousness • The Role of the Child’s Individuality • How Children Learn in the First Seven Years • Our Task as First Teachers • Trusting Ourselves • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 2
Home Life as the Basis for All Learning
Home Life Is Undervalued in Our Culture • Why Is It So Difficult to Be Home with Children Today? • Consciously Creating a Home • Four Levels of Home Life • Home Life as the Curriculum for the Young Child • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 3
Birth to Three: Growing Down and Waking Up
Growing into the Body • What Is Your Baby Like Between Six Weeks and Eight Months of Age? • Learning to Walk • The Second Year: Mastering Language • The Emergence of Thinking • The Young Child’s Senses • The Emerging Sense of Self • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 4
Helping Your Baby’s Development
Stimulating and Protecting the Sensitivity of the Newborn • What Is It Like Being with a Newborn? • What Is It Like from Months Two to Twelve? • Physical Development • The Development of Intelligence • Emotional Development • Language Development • Toys for the First Year • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 5
Helping Your Toddler’s Development
Encouraging Balanced Development • Dealing with Negative Behavior • Encouraging the Development of Language and Understanding • The Beginnings of Imaginative Play • Providing a Rich Environment for Your Toddler • Toys and Equipment • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 6
Rhythm in Home Life
Creating Rhythm in Daily Life • The Rhythm of the Week • Celebrating Festivals and the Rhythm of the Year • Celebrating Birthdays • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 7
Discipline and Other Parenting Issues
The Question of Discipline • Why Does Parenting Take So Much Energy? • Can You Work toward Rhythm with an Infant? • What about Weaning? • Crying Babies • What about Going Back to Work? • How Long Do Children’s Senses Need Protecting? • Toilet Training • Separation Anxiety and “Helicopter Parenting” • Cabin Fever • Other Parenting Issues • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 8
Nourishing Your Child’s Imagination and Creative Play
Three Stages of Play • Experiencing the World through Play • The Importance of Play in Intellectual Development • Ways to Encourage Your Child’s Creative Play • Nourishing Your Child’s Imaginative Play through Stories • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 9
Developing Your Child’s Artistic Ability
 
Children’s Drawings and Development • The Experience of Color • Watercolor Painting with Young Children • Metamorphosis in Later Stages of Life • Modeling with Beeswax • Making Things with Your Children • Freeing Your Own Inner Artist • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 10
Encouraging Your Child’s Musical Ability
Make a Joyful Noise • Music and Cognitive Development • Singing with Your Child • Movement Games and Fingerplays • Pentatonic Music and the “Mood of the Fifth” • What about Music and Dance Lessons? • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 11
Cognitive Development and Early Childhood Education
Academic vs. Play-Based Learning • Why Not Introduce Academics Early? • The Value of Preschool • Evaluating Early Childhood Programs • LifeWays and Waldorf Early Childhood Programs • LifeWays and Waldorf in the Home • The Value of Mixed-Age Programs • When Is Your Child Ready for First Grade? • What Happens Around Age Seven? • Beginning Academic Work: The Waldorf Approach • What about the Advanced or Gifted Child? • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 12
Common Parenting Questions: From Television to Immunizations
Preparation for Life • Computers • Balanced Development • Television • Toys • Video Games • Immunizations and Childhood Illnesses • The Sick Child • What Makes Children So Different from One Another? • Religion and Young Children • Recommended Resources
 
CHAPTER 13
Help for the Journey
Conscious Parenting Is a Process  • In Conclusion
 
Appendix: Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf Education
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

RAHIMA BALDWIN DANCY is internationally known as a Waldorf early childhood educator, author of Special Delivery, and coauthor of Pregnant Feelings. A mother of four, Dancy is a founding board member of LifeWays North America and co-founded/directed Rainbow Bridge LifeWays Program in Boulder, Colorado. Currently, she is the director of Informed Family Life, through which she organizes national conferences on alternatives in birth, parenting, and education. Visit www.waldorfinthehome.org.

Reviews

“This is a terrific book, packed with commonsense advice on the real basics of healthy mental and emotional development.  Rahima is a wise and knowledgeable guide for parents struggling to raise good kids in a challenging world. Someday your children will thank you for reading this book!”
–Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., author of Different Learners and Your Child's Growing Mind
 
“Here is an extraordinary work for those who want to develop a truly intelligent child and, in the process, unlock new levels of their own intelligence and spirit. Rahima Baldwin Dancy gives us a brilliant new insight into early childhood based on the work of Rudolf Steiner and her own rich experience as mother, midwife, and teacher. I only wish it might be required reading for both men and women in all high schools and colleges.”
–Joseph Chilton Pearce, author, Magical Child
 
"Every time I dip back into You Are Your Child's First Teacher, and there have been many times, I feel like I have been gently elevated and reassured. Rahima gives a compass bearing to the parenting soul."
–Kim John Payne, M.ED., author of Simplicity Parenting
 
“In You Are your Child’s First Teacher Baldwin Dancy offers counsel and advice as from a warm and caring friend, never condescending or authoritative, but encouraging, supportive, suggesting new approaches and offering her own experiences for consideration.”
–Home Education Magazine

“It is Baldwin Dancy's sensitive, sincere, and ever-so-natural tending to the soul and spirit, as well as mind and body, of the newborn and young child, that makes this a very special book.”  
–The Wellspring Guide
 
“Parents do not need a new set of rules or another authority telling them how to raise their children, only the capacity to see and understand the young child as a human being. Baldwin Dancy believes she can help parents harness the necessary ‘cognitive and intuitive knowledge’ to accomplish the task.” 
–The Brown University Child Behavior and Development Letter
 
“Baldwin Dancy helps us to see that there are real risks to treating our children like little adults. She suggests ways that we can enhance and nurture their development by making conscious choices in our efforts to educate.”
–Bookmarks, newsletter of the International Childbirth Education Association