Understanding how children grow, learn, and think helps adults and children live more harmoniously together. 

This thorough revision of Constructive Guidance and Discipline: Preschool and Primary Education continues to provide the information to help children to become happy, responsible, and productive people.   With a strong emphasis on developmental theory and constructivism, the book explains underlying causes for child behavior, weaves numerous preschool and primary classroom examples throughout, and includes three chapters on guiding children with special physical or emotional needs, learning disabilities, or children who are at risk due to poverty, violence, or loss.  The book is practical in its approach and focuses on how many effective early childhood education practices can prevent or alleviate many common discipline problems.  The authors reason that rewards and punishments do not work and that children must learn to make their own decisions based on their own values and convictions.  Children are profoundly influenced by the adults in their lives.  This book guides teachers and parents to an understanding of how to have a positive impact on their children’s lives. 

New To This Edition:

NEW!  Includes a new chapter on Children with Diverse Abilities (Chapter 13)–Focuses on the small percentage of children who require individualized discipline approaches.

• Helps sort out discipline issues from developmental delays and mental health issues.  

NEW!  Completely revised chapter on Vulnerable Children (Chapter 14)–This chapter deals with how poverty, violence, loss, and other risk factors affect children’s social emotional development.

NEW!  Provides a new section on the use of early learning guidelines to promote social emotional development (Chapter 15.)

NEW!  Offers an expanded section on design of the physical environment (Chapter 4.)

NEW!  Expands the discussion of observation for discovering the cause of behavior problems–Helps students apply the principle of focusing on the causes of behavior problems.

NEW!  Incorporates new content on the importance of adult-child relationships and classroom communities. 

NEW!  Updates the research on emotion regulation, emotional development, empathy, attachment, and the impact of temperament as they relate to child behavior and guidance.

• This information is essential to understanding child behavior and offering appropriate guidance.  

NEW!  Adds new chapter introductions outlining the main points of each chapter–Links them to the NAEYC teacher education standards.

NEW!  Includes new video vignettes stimulate class discussion and help students think through guidance principles in context–Lets them see guidance principles in action.