Parenting For Dummies, UK Edition
by Helen Brown
Senior Editor, Boots Parenting Club magazines
Parenting For Dummies, UK Edition
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-0-470-02714-1
ISBN-10: 0-470-02714-2
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Ltd, Glasgow
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Author
Helen Brown is a freelance journalist, whos been writing about parenting for many years. Shes been Consumer Editor of Pregnancy & Birth, Parenting Editor of She, and a judge of the Booktrust Early Years Awards. She writes regularly for Mother & Baby magazine and has recently helped develop and launch a series of parenting magazines for Boots. She lives in north London with her husband and their three sons, aged 8, 6 and 2.
Dedication
For Ben, Tom, and Ed, for the smiles they spread. And for Tim, who always points out the best bits.
Authors Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Alison Yates at John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, for commissioning me to write this book even though shed originally had me in mind for something far less ambitious! Many, many thanks, too, to the whole production team at Wiley, especially Simon Bell (father of two) for his patience and humour, Tracy Barr (mother of four) for her wonderfully wise and witty editing, Kate OLeary (mother of three) for her meticulous subbing and Eileen Hayes (mother of four) for her critical eye and expert advice.
Id like to thank Professor Lyn Quine, author of Solving Childrens Sleep Problems and the estate of the late Dr Louise Bates Ames, author of Raising Good Kids, for permission to adapt charts from their wonderful books.
Thanks also to all the parents Ive admired and learnt so much from whether Ive known you for years or just watched you once with your kids in the park. And to everyone in the Brown family and the Mills family, for encouraging, supporting and goading me on, and even managing to look sympathetic when I whinged. Special mention must go to Ben, Tom, and Ed, for their ever more inventive ways of getting me to open the office door and do something less boring instead.
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