Constructive Guidance and Discipline: Birth to Age Eight, Loose-Leaf Version, 6th Edition

Fields, Meritt, and Fields have written one of the most respected texts in the field, Constructive Guidance and Discipline: Early Childhood Education, and in the Sixth Edition, the authors provide information about helping children become confident, caring, responsible, and productive people in a strong and thoughtful way. This edition now includes content and examples on infants and toddlers, making the book relevant to teachers of children from birth through age eight. All of the authors’ recommendations about guidance approaches are based on the sound research of Jean Piaget, Alfred Adler and Carl Roger. These insightful recommendations, for novice and seasoned educators alike, further acknowledge the uniqueness of each child, including how individual temperaments and experiences affect behavior. The authors encourage their readers to treat the root cause of behavior problems rather than just the symptoms in order to obtain lasting results. In doing so, they continually present a clear discussion of child development and developmentally appropriate practices as they relate to the causes of children’s behavior.  Unique in providing a unified theory base for analyzing guidance and discipline, the text offers a consistent view of external versus internal motivation, explaining why rewards are as damaging as punishment, and why evaluative praise undermines children’s learning as well as their self-confidence. 

 

Keenly focused on developmental theory and constructivism, this celebrated resource explains underlying causes for child behavior, weaves numerous  infant/toddler, preschool and primary classroom examples throughout, includes two full chapters devoted to challenges stemming from children with special physical or emotional needs, learning disabilities, or risk factors due to poverty, violence, or loss, and many summary boxes and graphic aids to prepare students in becoming experts in guiding young children.

PART 1

Discipline Foundations

CHAPTER 1Thinking About Guidance and Discipline

CHAPTER 2 Physical and Emotional Development Affect Child Behavior

CHAPTER 3 Intellectual and Social Development Affect Discipline

PART 2 Discipline Approaches

CHAPTER 4 Creating Environments That Prevent Discipline Problems

CHAPTER 5 Planning Programs That Prevent Discipline Problems

CHAPTER 6 Teaching Desirable Behavior Through Example

CHAPTER 7 Effective Discipline Through Effective Communication

CHAPTER 8 Helping Children Understand and Accept Limits

CHAPTER 9 Beyond Behaviorism

CHAPTER 10 Punishment versus Discipline

PART 3 Matching Discipline Causes to Discipline Approaches

CHAPTER 11 Childlike Behaviors

CHAPTER 12 Unmet Needs

CHAPTER 13 Meeting Diverse Needs: Academic, Social, Cultural, & Linguistic

CHAPTER 14 Stress and Vulnerabilities

CHAPTER 15 Analyzing Discipline Problems