A baby who cannot relax can be helped to do so by a variety of constant rhythmical stimuli. it will work if the trouble is some kind of general and diffuse irritability or tenseness which is preventing a tired baby relaxing into sleep. The burring sound of a fan or heater works excellently. So does the sound of a car engine.

A preschool child does not emerge from your toddler on a given date or birthday. He becomes a child when he ceases to be a wayward, confusing, unpredictable and often balky person-in-the- making, and becomes a comparatively cooperative, eager-and-easy-to-please real human being--at least 60 per cent of the time.

Your toddler will be "good" if he feels like doing what you happen to want him to do and does not happen to feel like doing anything you would dislike. With a little cleverness you can organize life as a whole, and issues in particular, so that you both want the same thing most of the time.

Whatever you do to your child's body, you are doing to your child's mind too.

You know that your toddler needed love and approval but he often seemed not to care whether he got it or not and never seemed to know how to earn it. Your pre-school child is positively asking you to tell him what does and does not earn approval, so he is ready to learn any social refinement of being human which you will teach him....He knows now that he wants your love and he has learned how to ask for it.

Kids haven't changed much, but parents seem increasingly unhappy with the child raising phase of their lives.

Two generations ago only a few unfortunate children ever saw anyone hit over the head with a brick, shot, rammed by a car, blown up, immolated, raped or tortured. Now all children, along with their elders, see such images every day of their lives and are expected to enjoy them. ... The seven-year-old who hides his eyes in the family cops-and-robbers drama is desensitized four years later to a point where he crunches potato chips through the latest video nasty.