Book Review: Elevating Child Care, by Janet Lansbury

This is a short handbook about the RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) philosophy of parenting/caring for children. Some of the facets of RIE come naturally to me and I’ve been doing them all along, but other aspects are new to me, and I can see how they might be helpful tools, especially in the toddler years.

I think any parent could glean quite a few useful ideas from Elevating Child Care, even if you don’t 100% buy into the philosophy. I personally feel uncomfortable with certain statements in the book, such as, “Every thought, desire, feeling – every expression of our mind, body and heart – is perfectly acceptable, appropriate and lovable” (page 21) and, “There are no wrong desires or feelings, just wrong ways of acting on them” (page 120).

But overall, I really like this approach and will definitely be using (and have already started using!) many of the techniques with my baby, who is now almost eight months old.

I am marking Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting off as “A book about parenting” for the #VTReadingChallenge.