Customer Reviews

Touchpoints Three to Six: Your Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have admired Dr. Brazelton for years. I was delighted to find that he had come out with a book on three to six-year-olds. As the author of a behavior management program (The Voucher System), I have been searching for the right book to help parents of four-year-olds understand this often challenging age. I wish I had read the book before singing its praises to hundreds. Compared to "Touchpoints: Your Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development," Dr. Brazelton's new book lacks a reflection of his vast knowledge and wonderful talent. However, a person can glean much from this book. Even though "answers" are often hidden behind waves of arbitrary reading the book does touch on many important issues.

What many young parents are looking for is a simply laid out book addressing the habits, emotional development, and characteristics which are conducive to a child's respective age. This is not that kind of book. Have we forgotten that parents need the same answers we did twenty years ago? I remember the colorful, easy to read, thin book that helped me through the first six years. It explained that it's normal for a five-year-old to go through a lying phase, and how a four-year-old needs fantasy play, story books, coloring books and interaction with adults who will teach them the many things their minds are dying to soak in.

If you like to read, and you have the time, I suggest ordering this book and reading it cover to cover. It may not be the best book on specific answers to specific questions, but it's worth a read.

I am very sad to say that I was very disappointed since I am not sure I could have made it through the first three years without the first Touchpoints. Unfortunately, the clean organization and consistent formatting in each chapter that made Touchpoints such a valuable reference was lost in favor of more detailed stories about four children. It is very difficult to find your child in the four examples since they are so detailed it reads more like a novel than a parenting book. Also, I am aware of the amazing experience of the authors, but I don't know any children like those described. The three-year-olds are much more verbal and social, with less motor development than the ones I have known. That alone makes me feel like I am reading a sociological ethnography rather than the practical primer I was hoping to find. If you are looking for practical advice on why your four-year-old has started night waking, or why your formerly mellow three-year-old now has daily temper tantrums, you will only find it here if you are willing to dig through the entire volume and read between the lines.

Dr. Brazelton seems to be a gentle and loving advocate for children, and a doctor who understands them! I've read other books by him and enjoyed them very much, and been comforted by them, and was looking forward to this addition to his work. Unfortunately I agree with most of the other comments made here, that the format makes it much more difficult to find specific information. Because the authors use four composite children to describe many events and behaviors, it makes it difficult to tease out what is relevant. Our toddler is very similar in temperament to "Billy", but Billy supposedly grew up with an abusive father for a while and his mother has remarried -- nothing like our child's experience -- so what becomes irrelevant in the text and what can we still use? Largely told as lengthy narratives, it takes a long time to find useful ideas, but there is a good index that helps.

Despite the poor format, the ideas here are solid and helpful. Brazelton and Sparrow posit that as children reach milestones of development they backslide in other areas -- a usually peaceful child suddenly indulging in temper tantrums as they begin to conquer speech, for example.

We've found Brazelton's ideas helpful and spot-on, and there are unique events in this age range that make the book useful, though the clunky format keeps it from being invaluable.

I highly recommend this book to every parent of children ages 3 to 6, and their teachers too. It is so much more respectful -of parents and children- then all those books that just tell parents what to do and talk about children as if they were simply meant to be programmed or controlled. I have found that with the help of this book, the new understanding I have of my four-year-old has led me to new ways of responding to her difficult behaviors. As a result, she is thriving, maturing before our eyes, and we're all happier for it.

I am a retired nurse educator; maternal/child nursing was my masters-level major, neonatal intensive care was my clinical specialty. Brazelton is my decades-long idol for helping me to read infant behavioral cues and to respond to them, as well as to transmit same to parents. I bought Brazelton's original "Touchpoints: The Essential Reference" as soon as it was published in 1992; I still treasure that well-worn copy. I give to new parent and grandparent friends the revised version, which I believe now has a title that indicates it is for newborns to age three. I have not read it, but it seems to fit the "essential reference" theme. For "Touchpoints 3 to 6", Brazelton uses a case study approach that builds on the premises established in the reference. I like case studies, so I would give this book five stars if I didn't know that not all readers can use case studies. Readers who have internalized the premises established in the first book may find it more useful than those who have not.

I just had to put down this book for a minute and write this review because I really feel this book is quite wonderful and valuable. Instead of all the "do this" "do that" of the typical parenting books "Ten days to this...." "Seven Ways to...." whatever, Brazelton uses NARRATIVES to follow a number of children from age three to age six, in the process describing the developmental touchpoints along with all the struggles and successes they experience. Along the way, he shares his insights about each developmental stage but it's really learning through the stories of the children. It's like having this incredibly skilled, wise, and experienced professional take you on a tour in which you examine the lives of a handful of children as they start to grow up. The things the children experience, of course, are similar to the things all children experience, so you come away from the book with a deeper understanding of how to be the best most understanding parent you can be--not a checklist of things to change about yourself or gimmicky techniques. In other words, this is SOLID. Brazelton leaves it to each parent to draw their own conclusions rather than pummel the parent on the head with some agenda, technique, method, school of thinking, etc. To make the book more overtly practical, he does include in the final section a series of short chapters about specific issues or subjects parents might be especially needing some guidance about like sleep, honesty, special needs kids, twins, grief and loss, etc. I would recommend this book to any parent who wants to take the time to really think about your kid and what he or she needs rather than just try to quickly apply some expert's method or technique.

This is such a good resource for me as a pre-school teacher and instructor of college intern and practicum students. The information in this book gives me additional information to share with parents and students in the Human Development and Family Studies Department.

I found my child over and over again on these beautifully written pages. Not in one of the four different children that the reader watches as they grow fduring the preschoo years, but in bits and pieces of all of them. I also loved the last chapter with all the different sections on challenges children have to deal with, especially since myh mother died and i was struggling with how to help my five year old son with this. This book really helped me and my son.

I was eager to receive this book, since I found his first book essential to my understanding my daughter. He abandoned his style, which is detailed and explanatory, but applicable to every parent who reads. This book unfortunately follows four children to the exclusion of many other styles of child. I couldn't extrapolate any of the kids' personalities to my child, so it rendered the book useless for me.

Between Brazelton & Sears...I have all the child development advice a parent needs. I like the way Brazelton speaks to PARENTS and not child development experts...it's a very easy to read book with LOADS of great info!!! Very practical and yet has a loving approach.