You Are Your Child's First Teacher, Third Edition: Encouraging Your Child's Natural Development from Birth to Age Six

"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

The first book in America to popularize the insights of Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf schools, regarding the developmental needs of young children, this revised and updated edition offers new ways for parents and educators to enrich the lives of children from birth to age six.

Today’s society often pressures us into overstimulating young children with flashcards, workbooks, videos, and electronic gadgets in a well-meaning attempt to give them a head start. But children are not little adults—they learn and grow in radically different ways at different ages, and what we do to help could actually hurt instead.

Some of the most important learning years happen before your child reaches school. In You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, respected Waldorf educator Rahima Baldwin Dancy explains the different stages of learning that children go through from birth to age six, giving you the wisdom and understanding to enrich your child’s natural development in the right way at the right time.

A trusted classic for over twenty years, this newly revised edition contains updated resources and additional information on discipline, early childhood programs, toilet training, using home life as curriculum, and more. From language and cognitive development to appropriate toys and nourishing your child’s artistic abilities, Dancy speaks up for a rational approach to child-rearing, one that helps children be children while we fulfill our important role as parents and first teachers.