How to react when your toddler bites his playmate or your kindergartner confronts a bully? Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow bring their much-admired insight and support to this crucial, and ever more timely, childrearing challenge. From an early age, babies and toddlers need to assert themselves in a daunting world, yet eventually learn to do this without hurting others. After showing how aggression emerges at each age, Brazelton and Sparrow offer practical, wise advice on anger, fights, self-defense, the fears and nightmares that arise when children become aware of their own and others aggression, the effects of TV and video games, and of experiencing real life violence. They offer specific, effective ways to help children understand their own aggressive feelings and channel them into healthy self-assertion in schoolwork, games, and sports.

About the Author

Dr T Berry Brazelton, founder of the Child Development Unit at Children's Hospital, Boston, is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvad Medical School, and Professor of Pediatrics and Human Development at Brown University. A famed advocate for children, his many internationally acclaimed books for parents include Touchpoints, To Listen to a Child, Infants and Mothers, and, with Stanley I Greenspan, The Irreducible Needs of Children. Dr Joshua D Sparrow, child psychiatrist and supervisor of inpatient psychiatry at Children's Hospital, Boston, is Assistant Director of Training at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. He it the coauthor, with Dr Brazelton, or Touchpoints Three to Six.