Learning Center

Drawing on the contributions and practical wisdom of more than 100 pediatric specialists, the thoroughly revised 5th edition includes:

• Basic child care from infancy through 5 years
• Guidelines and milestones for physical, emotional, social, and cognitive growth
• A complete health encyclopedia covering injuries, illnesses, congenital diseases, and other disabilities
• Guidelines for prenatal and newborn care with sections on maternal nutrition, exercise, and screening tests during pregnancy
• An in-depth guide to breastfeeding, including its benefits, techniques, and challenges
• A guide to choosing child care programs and car safety seats
• Ways to reduce your child’s exposure to environmental hazards such as tobacco smoke

Food Fights provides parents with practical, reality-based strategies for dealing with common behavioral and developmental issues that can make getting kids to eat healthy foods a daily challenge. Readers are sure to relish the 10 palatable peacekeeping strategies served up by Drs Jana and Shu, who bring together the science of nutrition with the practical insight of parents who have “been there.” Topics include:

• Starting Out on Solid Ground – A look at the substances at hand, beginning with Baby Bites and leading straight into the challenges of too much ketchup and too few vegetables.
• Drinking Problems – A section that takes a look at everything from habit-drinking to “pop” culture, with special attention paid to such commonplace battles as the toddler who puts his foot down about not putting down his bottle, and matters of milk, water and sippy cups.
• Food, Food Everywhere But Not a Bite They’ll Eat – How to survive a picky eater, as well as other activities of daily eating such as whining and dining, the pitfalls of using food as a reward, and the quirks and habits that so frequently make their way to the toddler table and beyond.
• Eating Outside of the House – Addresses the many outside influences on a parent’s nutritional efforts – from friends and family to child care and checkout lanes at the grocery store. Offers renewed hope for parents interested in being able to eat out with their children without reservations.
• Just for the Health of It – A useful set of chapters dedicated to helping parents keep up with the latest on growth curves and BMI, handle the dietary challenges involved in feeding children in the face of illness, and deal with disturbances of the digestive process as found in Constipation Consternation, the Price of Gas and Refluxively Speaking.

It’s entertaining, real-world advice every parent can use every day!

This comprehensive and authoritative self-help guide on bedwetting is written for parents, caregivers, and children (ages six to thirteen). Parents and children can address the challenge of bedwetting together with this delightful book that guides them through Dr. Bennett’s Waking Up Dry Program. Includes instruction on behavior management techniques, calendars, contracts, and bedwetting alarms as well as practical tips and easy-to-follow activities.

Based on the American Academy of Pediatrics clinical guidelines for ADHD and written in clear, easy-to-understand language, this essential guide offers accurate, up-to-date findings on evaluation and diagnosis, coexisting conditions, and unproven treatments. It explores ADHD management strategies that balance the roles of behavior therapy, medications, and parenting techniques. Also addressed are behaviors associated with the teenage years and what schools can do to support children with the condition.

In ADHD: A Complete and Authoritative Guide, you’ll find answers to questions such as:

• How is ADHD diagnosed?
• What are today’s best treatment options?
• What can schools do to support children with ADHD?
• Will my child outgrow ADHD?
• How can I help my teenager manage social and emotional pressure?
• And more!

Through vivid stories of the experiences of their patients (both adults and children), Drs. Hallowell and Ratey show the varied forms ADD takes — from the hyperactive search for high stimulation to the floating inattention of daydreaming — and the transforming impact of precise diagnosis and treatment.

Now in one comprehensive AAP volume, parents can access accurate, up-to-date scientific information to promote and support positive physical, emotional, cognitive, and psychologic growth in their teenagers. Spanning the full spectrum of adolescent development issues, this easy-to-use handbook helps parents and their children navigate the “tumultuous teens” with practical advice from a trusted authority-an essential “survival” guide to meet the challenge of raising a happy, healthy teenager.

Covers a wide range of teen health and development issues including

• Setting limits and maintaining discipline
• Handling peer pressure and the temptations of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs
• Dating, sexuality, and sexually transmitted diseases
• Nutrition, body image, and eating disorders
• Changing relationships between teens and other family members
• 12 keys to developing self-esteem
• Hormones and a teenager’s changing body
• Medical ailments common to teenagers
• And much more!

Children today are growing up in a world far different from the one in which their parents were raised. Between the Internet, gaming systems, mp3 players, and cell phones, today’s kids are nearly always connected to something digital. And, because it’s developing so fast, it’s hard for parents to stay on top of the technology—and even harder to figure out how to help their kids make good decisions when it comes to these things.

This informative book will guide parents through the landscape of the digital world, helping them better understand things like:

• The history and the future of the Internet
• Cyberbullying (and how to help kids deal with it if it happens to them)
• Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace
• Gaming and virtual worlds
• Parental control systems that allow parents to monitor kids’ online activities
• Digital footprints (and how kids can make sure theirs is a good one)

Beyond informing readers on the latest trends in technology, Dr. Gwenn gives provides the tools parents need to help their child navigate the digital world with insight and intelligence. Because, let’s face it, just because kids may be more technologically savvy than their parents doesn’t mean they have the wisdom and understanding to make good decisions with the media they’re using. In addition to helping parents understand the digital world so they can help their children thrive in it, the book also includes tips to help the whole family discover the joy of the unplugged world that is still going on around them.

Are you worried about your child’s extra weight? If so, you’re not alone. Childhood obesity has reached epidemic levels in the United States, affecting more than 9 million children and teens.

Being overweight can limit your child’s physical activity and contribute to low self-esteem, but what’s even more disturbing are the serious medical conditions and diseases that can develop as a result of being too heavy—like cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

How do you as a parent take steps to help your child lose weight? Like it or not, childhood obesity is not a problem that can be solved overnight. Even so, the message of this book is simple—you and your child can succeed.

A Parent’s Guide to Childhood Obesity: A Road Map to Health offers long-term strategies and expert advice along with worksheets, questionnaires, and other interactive tools to help your child reach and maintain a healthy weight.

This comprehensive guide offers:

• Sensible, nutritional information and guidelines, emphasizing balanced and nourishing meals
• Strategies for dealing effectively with a variety of parenting challenges
• Approaches for encouraging increased physical activity
• Questionnaires to evaluate how food is used in families
• Guidance on how to partner with pediatricians, extended family members, schools, and child care providers to help ensure success

Inspired by the questions pediatricians are most often asked, this guide provides on-the-spot, concise advice for those who are unsure about how to handle their child’s condition. Offering the insight of a parent of children under the age of three and the experience of a pediatrician, this resource provides information on a diverse range of topics, including How can I be sure that my newborn is getting enough to eat? Should I worry that my child has a fever after getting his shots today? What should I do if I think my child swallowed a coin? and I don’t know what vaccine information to trust—should I vaccinate my son? in a reassuring yet humorous tone.

Karp, a pediatrician in Santa Monica, Calif., and assistant professor at the School of Medicine, UCLA, offers a new method to calm and soothe crying infants. While nursing or being held satisfies some babies, others seemingly cry for hours for no reason. These babies suffer from what Karp calls the Fourth Trimester. When you bring your soft, dimpled newborn home from the hospital, you may think your nursery is a peaceful sanctuary…. To him, it’s a disorienting world part Las Vegas casino, part dark closet! Karp recommends a series of five steps designed to imitate the uterus. These steps include swaddling, side/stomach position, shhh sounds, swinging and sucking. The book includes detailed advice on the proper way to swaddle a child, the difference between a gentle rocking versus shaking and more. According to the author, virtually all babies will respond to these strategies although some trial and error may be needed to find the most effective calming method. A number of the steps letting kids nurse more frequently or encouraging babies to use pacifiers, for instance, contradict other childcare experts. However, parents who are at their wits’ ends because of a baby’s incessant crying will find this book invaluable. In fact, expectant parents may want to read it before they bring their newborns home from the hospital.