Relationship-Based Care for Infants and Toddlers: Fostering Early Learning and Development Through Responsive Practice

Infant-toddler care and education highlight the social and emotional worlds of babies and toddlers, emphasizing their active, agentic, and intentional social engagement with adults and peers. This text explores the essential elements of infant learning, such as play, peer friendships, and humor, and examines the complex roles of infant-toddler professionals and the importance of supportive and caring environments. It also presents a unique set of chapters that reveal infants and toddlers' perspectives and consider the caregiver's actions within a responsive care framework.

Format: Hardback
Length: 144 pages
Publication date: 24 November 2023
Publisher: Teachers' College Press

In this comprehensive text, the social and emotional realms of babies and toddlers, their peers, and their caregivers are brought to life through the everyday experiences of infant-toddler care and education. The authors portray infants and toddlers as active, agentic, and intentional social partners from the very beginning of life, highlighting their unique abilities to engage socially with both adults and peers. Interwoven throughout the narrative are insights derived from extensive observations, teacher interviews, and video analyses.

Part I emphasizes play, peer friendships, and humor as essential elements of infant learning, illustrated with anecdotes from early care and education settings. Building on these aspects of babies' ways of being in group care, Part II delves into the complex roles of infant-toddler professionals and the critical importance of supportive and caring environments. Readers will explore the elements necessary for in-depth and specialized professional preparation, including overarching principles of relationship-based practice.

Book Features:

Illuminates particular and understudied ways that infants and toddlers actively contribute to their own social learning and development.

Shares how teachers learn to engage with and nurture infants and toddlers' social capacities and experiences within child care settings.

Uses anecdotes and vignettes from the authors' research and practice with infants, toddlers, and caregivers to bring their experiences to life.

Discusses themes that are important and unique for infancy and toddlerhood, such as play, friendships, humor, and professional love.

Presents a unique set of chapters that reveal the intricacies of infant-toddler care and education, offering valuable insights for practitioners, educators, and researchers alike.

Dimension: 235 x 162 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780807768914