Magic Years Parenting

"Life changes fast....You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." These were among the first words Joan Didion wrote in January 2004. Her daughter was lying unconscious in an intensive care unit, a victim of pneumonia and septic shock. Her husband, John Gregory Dunne, was dead. The night before New Year's Eve, while they were sitting down to dinner, he suffered a massive and fatal coronary. The two had lived and worked side by side for nearly 40 years.

Parents will gain insight into how to transform their parenting to help middle schoolers find greater independence, connect well with peers, and have the deepest learning possible in and out of school. Educators will learn about the developmental keys to making middle school a place of belonging, with deep social and emotional learning and academics that draw out students' full motivation and potential.

Two developmental psychologists/language experts offer parents a powerfully insightful guide to how infants - even while in the womb - begin to learn language.