Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Pasadena, CA

It's not strictly a parenting book, but Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year is a wonderful memoir of becoming a mother and opening oneself up to new life at the same time as the author loses a cherished friend to cancer. It won't mirror everyone's situation exactly, but the overall themes of life and loss are universal, and Lamott writes movingly about how becoming a parent opens you up to overwhelming fierce love, tenderness, and vulnerability.

I also like approaches that emphasize non-violent connection between parent and child, like Parenting From Your Heart: Sharing the Gifts of Compassion, Caring, and Choice, by Inbal Kashtan. My bias is toward positive parenting, or techniques that use the power of deep parent-child connection to motivate and encourage the child to good behavior. I've seen good results when this approach is combined with a solid, research-based understanding of early childhood development--what a child is and isn't capable of developmentally. Two good books on this subject are What's Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, by mother and neuroscientist Lise Eliot, and Baby Hearts: A Guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start, by Susan Goodwyn and Linda Acredolo.

Another book along these lines is Playful Parenting, by Lawrence J. Cohen. The book highlights ways to infuse loving playfulness into the sometimes brusque or emotionally charged ways parents correct their children's behavior. When we realize that very young children learn so much through play, it can be a revelation to parents that guiding and teaching pro-social behavior can be equally meaningful if approached with a light touch or a humorous manner. It's also a great way to be reminded that shaping a child's behavior need not be crisis-driven and anchored in transgression. For example, don't we all learn better when we're not afraid or stressed? Positive and encouraging messages can emerge through play and be just as powerful.