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Erna Furman's insightful new work, Toddlers and Their Mothers, describes her affirmative effort to place the toddler in the forefront of diagnostic and treatment protocols. She focuses on a population often overlooked by child health care workers. Straddling the tenuous domain between infancy and the early school years, toddlerhood remains the forgotten era. Furman skillfully articulates the noteworthy maturational challenges that confront children of this age and, in so doing, awakens the reader to the remarkable potential that characterizes children during these years of pivotal transformation.
The discussion presented in the book is both compelling and personable. One reason why the narrative is so compelling is that Furman has relied on a model of intervention with which she has had extensive experience and can therefore discuss her insights in a refreshingly unpretentious and conversational style. The Mother—Toddler Group, of the Hanna Perkins School adopts a dramatically different approach to the assessment and treatment of the toddler. The Mother—Toddler Group, which derives its name from the inclusion of both mother and toddler in a joint effort with other dyads, has devised a series of interventions to address several of the prime developmental tasks that children of this age must master to function effectively in the world. Specifically, Furman devotes substantial attention to the self-care of bodily needs and to the gradual relinquishment of control by the parent as the toddler masters an independent mode of functioning. Highlighting the key role of the caregiver, especially of the mother, in helping the child organize these skills, Furman advocates treatment-via-the-parent, an innovative technique that requires