Nurturing Natures (2^nd Ed.) Attachment and Children's Emotional, Sociocultural and Brain Development

This new edition of the bestselling text, Nurturing Natures, provides an indispensable synthesis of the latest scientific knowledge about children?s emotional development. Integrating a wealth of both up-to-date and classical research from areas such as attachment theory, neuroscience developmental psychology and cross-cultural studies, it weaves these into an accessible enjoyable text which always keeps in mind children recognisable to academics, practitioners and parents.

It unpacks the most significant influences on the developing child, including the family and social context. It looks at key developmental stages from life in the womb to the pre-school years and right up until adolescence, covering important topics such as genes and environment, trauma, neglect or resilience. It also examines how children develop language, play and memory and, new to this edition, moral and prosocial capacities. Issues of nature and nurture are addressed and the effects of different kinds of early experiences are unpicked, creating a coherent and balanced view of the developing child in context.

Nurturing Natures is written by an experienced child therapist who has used a wide array of research from different disciplines to create a highly readable and scientifically trustworthy text. This book should be essential reading for childcare students, for teachers, social workers, health visitors, early years practitioners and those training or working in child counselling, psychiatry and mental health. Full of fascinating findings, it provides answers to many of the questions people really want to ask about the human journey from conception into adulthood.

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List of Figures: Acknowledgements; 1.Introduction: The Blind men and the elephant; Part One: Beginnings of Emotional and Social Development; 2. Life Begins: From conception to Birth 3. Born to Relate 4.Infant Coping Mechanisms, Mismatches, and repairs in relation 5. Empathy, self and other minds; Part Two: Overarching Bodies of Ideas; 6. Attachment 7. Culture 8. Biology and the Brain 9. Epigenetics, Evolution and How nature meets nurture; Part Three: Developmental Capacities and Stages; 10. Language, words and Symbols 11. Memories: Learning who we are and what to expect 12. Play: Fun, symbolising, practising and mucking about 13. Boys, girls, and gender; Part Four: Not Just Mothers; 14. Nonmaternal care and childcare 15. Middle childhood, siblings, peers and group life 16. The Place of Fathers 17. Moving towards adulthood; Part Five: Consequences of Early Experiences; 18. Trauma, neglect and their effects 19. Resilience and good feelings 20. Moral Development, antisocial and prosocial behaviour 21. Conclusions: Earlier experience and its longer-term consequences; Glossary; references; author index; subject index