| Summary: | "The Management of Young Children can be confidently recommended to parents because it is at the same time sound in theory and well calculated to help in daily living with children. It does what the title promises, and it does much more than that. The authors take a broad view of what is involved in "management," recognizing that the parent who is to get the benefit of the study and experience summarized and elucidated in this book must learn to manage him- or herself, and not merely the child as an external entity, much as one manages an automatic refrigerator. They point the way indeed to the effective guidance of young children, but largely in terms of directing the relationship between the child and his environment, including the parents and other human beings. The increasing reliance upon scientific findings in the management of practical affairs carries with it a certain danger, namely that of mechanizing procedures, of standardizing our treatment of children. This danger is admirably anticipated by the authors of the present book. They undertake from the very first to make the reader realize the distinction between a formula and a philosophy, between a rule and a principle. There seems to be a special need for a clear and convincing development of this point to-day, when the glorification of science has served in many quarters to discredit "philosophy" as something vague, futile, impractical; and when the admirably precise and specific formulations of science, combined with our frequently pathetic need for help, make us look to the formula as the last word of wisdom. The book relates its eminently practical advice to a larger view of life, as humans live it to-day in a complex society"--Foreword. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)
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