Laura Davis is a nationally known lecturer and workshop leader. She is the co-author, with Ellen Bass, of The Courage to Heal and Beginning to Heal and the author of The Courage to Heal Workbook and Allies in Healing. Her books have been published in nine languages and have sold over 1.5 million copies. Davis is the stepmother of a young adult and the parent of a five-year-old and a toddler. She writes a monthly parenting column in the newspaper, Growing Up in Santa Cruz. Davis lives with her family in Santa Cruz, California.

How she came to write this book.....

In March of 1993, when my son Eli was born, my life changed utterly and irrevocably. Before Eli, I'd been a waitress, a car wash attendant, a bartender, a teacher's aide, a reporter, a talk show host, a radio producer, a lecturer, a workshop leader, and a nationally-known author. After the publication of my first book, The Courage to Heal, I'd spent years traveling around the country helping adults deal with the pain they'd experienced being sexually abused as children. I'd devoted myself to studying what went wrong in families, and in the course of doing that, I realized that what I wanted to do most of all was to come home and create a healthy family...

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With my life partner and my teenage stepson, I built a nest and a family, a home I felt happy in. My newfound sense of peace and equilibrium led me to return to one of my most cherished dreams -- to have a child of my own.

When Eli was born, we welcomed him into our family with love and no reservations. In those first weeks, I remember watching Eli sleep -- his few strands of hair, his thin little arms, and the nursing blister which graced his top lip. I nursed him, slept with him, sang to him, held him. When I wasn't doing those things, I pored over parenting books by the dozen. A precious life had been entrusted to me, and I wanted to do the very best I could. I wanted to be a good parent. Yet I didn't trust my instincts. So I set out to find out what the experts had to say. The result was completely confounding.

It was easy enough to find the books. The bookstores were full of them. There were books which told me how to feed my baby, change his diaper, bring down fevers, handle colic, respond to difficult behavior, use positive discipline and build self-esteem. I brought them home by the armful and read for hours in the middle of the night.

But there were major problems with my literary search. For one thing, many of the books contradicted each other. One said to sleep with your baby, that it promoted attachment; another claimed that it was of vital importance that your baby sleep alone. One said to circumcise. Another insisted it was traumatic. One book encouraged teaching two-year-olds to read. Another warned not to introduce letters to children until they were seven and got their second set of teeth. And each of these books was written by an expert with years of experience in child development. Each presented its message with conviction. As a new parent, I felt vulnerable and uncertain. Although I found nuggets of wisdom in these books, they often left me feeling confused, criticized, and at times, inadequate. I wanted to do it by the book, but which was the right book?

The other problem was that none of these authors knew anything about me, my upbringing, my culture, my values or who I had supporting me in my life. None of them acknowledged what was unique about me and my family. None of them asked me to assess the feelings and strengths and vulnerabilities I brought to parenting. Each assumed I was a blank slate, ready to assimilate a new parenting theory and swallow it whole. Yet I wasn't. I came to parenthood with my own strong ideas about what I wanted for myself, my family and my new son. I needed help realizing my visions, making my dreams for my family manifest, but I knew what those dreams were. And they didn't match up with the books I was reading. In frustration, I found myself asking the question: "Where is the book that is going to help me become the parent I want to be?"

When Eli was three months old, I had the good fortune to take an Infant Development Class with Janis Keyser at Cabrillo College. The first day of class, it became that clear that Janis's approach would be different. She told us right away that you can't look at babies and children outside the context of their families and the cultures they come from. So as we watched our babies play and explore, as we talked about their fussiness and their growth spurts, she asked us about our lives at home, our expectations, about what we valued and believed in. Janis wanted to know who we were, what we wanted for our babies. And not being blank slates, we all had something to say.

When the semester was over, a group of us continued to meet with Janis. We get together once a month. We've discussed diaper rash, biting, teething, television, toys, child care, saying good-bye, sibling conflicts, kids who won't eat, gun play, tantrums, taking care of ourselves, intimacy, sex, and couple relationships, and more than once, getting kids to sleep. Janis provides insights, resources, ideas and perspective on what's happening with our children developmentally.

Janis models her philosophy of respect for children and parents by responding to us thoughtfully, and by helping us find our own solutions. I learn something valuable at every meeting -- as much from other people's experiences as my own. Janis inspires me to question my assumptions, try new approaches and see my role as a parent differently, but I never go away feeling shamed or guilty.

And I've noticed an interesting thing. Time and time again, a parent comes in struggling with a particular dilemma: "Keith isn't eating. What should I do?" And each time, as Janis listens and begins to probe, a more complex set of dynamics emerges: "My husband plays all these airplane games with Keith to try to get him to eat. He doesn't want to waste food, but I don't think it's right to force him."

In her work with each family, the problem at hand rapidly gives way to deeper issues: "What is it I want to teach my son about food and nurturing?" "My husband and I come from such different backgrounds. What should we do when we disagree?" "What does it mean for our kids if I do things one way and my partner does them another?" And sometimes, "It's great to have all these ideals about parenting, but when I'm exhausted and I can barely drag through the day, no less be a great parent. What about time for me?"

Again and again, the questions boil down to, "What kind of parent do I want to be? And how can I get there from here?"

Part of my task in Eli's early years is to build my own perspective, to carve out a point of view that will help me with all the complex and multifaceted choices I'll be faced with throughout his growing up years. As well as asking, "What will fix things in the moment?" Janis has taught me to ask, "What is it that I want to teach? What are my hopes for my child in the long run?"

In BECOMING THE PARENT YOU WANT TO BE, we've tried to create for you the same kind of fertile, supportive environment that exists in Janis's workshops. It is my hope that you find the voices and perspectives in this book as valuable, reassuring, and lively as I do my own parent's support group.

-- Laura Davis

Janis Keyser is a teacher, parent educator, program director and speaker who specializes in Early Childhood Development. She teaches full time in the Early Childhood Education Department at Cabrillo College and has been conducting parenting workshops for over 20 years. She is a nationally recognized speaker at parenting, family and child development conferences. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and is the mother of three, stepmother of five, grandmother of twelve, and the great-grandmother of four.

How she came to write this book.....

I started my work with families as a pre-school teacher. I had always been fascinated with children and wanted to work with them in some capacity. However, not long into my work with children, I discovered parents. I loved my time with the children, but I began to relish those special moments at the end of the day when parents came to pick up their children and we got to talk.

Like many a new teacher, I started my work with parents by thinking about what I could teach them. I knew all these wonderful things about what was good for children and I wanted parents to know them, too. Parents were patient with me and steadily continued to teach me what they knew. As a young teacher I had a lot to learn about the love, dedication, and thoughtfulness parents bring to the job of nurturing children...

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Over time, I learned to establish reciprocal dialogues with parents. As I taught them about child development, about what motivated their children's behaviors, about positive teaching skills, about ways to define problems and create solutions, they taught me about resilience, struggle, and creativity. As I taught parents about the experiences of children in groups, they taught me what it was like to deal with a child at home, in a family. They taught me about the unique challenges contemporary families face. Through their willingness to make mistakes, take risks, get back up and try again, they continually impressed me with their commitment, resourcefulness, and courage.

Parents have also taught me how to "find the question." In my early years, I was eager to provide quick solutions, often offering several before parents even had a chance to finish defining what the issue was. But over the years, I've come to see my role as that of a facilitator and a catalyst, rather than as an expert with all the answers.

I bring twenty-five years of experience as a parent and a teacher to the writing of this book. I've taught preschool and college, led parenting classes, supervised new teachers, directed child care programs, and developed and coordinated programs for parent education. As a member of the Early Childhood Education faculty at Cabrillo College, I have had the opportunity to work with colleagues to develop innovative programs for parents of infants and toddlers, and to provide leadership in peace education and anti-bias teaching.

I've had a long, rewarding apprenticeship in parenting under the tutelage of my three children. Eighteen years ago, when I was pregnant with Lee, I was full of excitement about trying out all the child development information I'd learned as a teacher. I wasn't even wise enough to be apprehensive. I was confident that I knew all about children. But nothing I'd learned about babies and children prepared me for being with a newborn twenty-four hours a day. Being a parent was absolutely different than being a teacher. Although I was totally absorbed in and enraptured with Lee, I was also confused and lonely. I began seeking out other parents with new babies and I spent hours just looking at Lee.

Slowly, as I watched Lee develop and as I talked to other parents about their concerns, questions, anxieties and delights, I began to feel more confident. I relaxed and started to believe that my baby was going to be okay.

Five years later, when Calvin was born, I learned a whole new set of lessons about sibling relationships. Like most second-time parents, I was amazed that my love for this new child only deepened my feelings for my first. And four years after that, when Maya was born, I was awestruck by how much more my heart could open -- and by just how unique each child can be.

I've learned more from being a parent than from any other experience. As my most loyal and dedicated instructors, my children drill me repeatedly on each new skill, never giving up until I get it. Each of them has taken me to places the others never took me before. Each has challenged me to grow in a new way. Through my experiences and struggles with my children, I have a heightened sense of respect for all parents.

With my own children, and in my work with parents, there's one phenomenon I've witnessed repeatedly: when parents feel encouraged, they develop a sense of competence and optimism which leads to more enjoyment of parenting and a greater appreciation of their children. Parents who feel supported are more open to learning from their mistakes, more willing to try new strategies when old ones don't work. They're able to think about what they want to teach their kids and they're better equipped to narrow the gap between that vision and the reality of their daily lives.

I'm committed to building a world where parents have the support they need to build healthy families -- families in which children can learn, have fun, play, laugh, and explore; families in which kids can take love, safety, and being fed for granted. I continually work toward creating a community that respects parents for the enormity and importance of their task, a world in which all families are connected to a network of friends, education, and resources. Supporting families is not just crucial for the health of every child, but it is crucial for the health of our nation.

When Laura first approached me about writing this book, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to create a family-friendly resource for parents that could begin to meet some of these goals. I envisioned a book that would offer concrete help to parents, answering immediate questions about eating, sleep, discipline, family conflict, tantrums, and hundreds of other concerns that arise in the lives of young children. I wanted to give parents relevant child development information so they could understand why their children were doing what they were doing. But more than anything else, I wanted to present a philosophy of respect for families which helps parents define their own goals and develop their own creative solutions.

-- Janis Keyser

Excerpted from Becoming the Parent You Want to Be: A Sourcebook of Strategies for the First Five Years by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser.
Copyright © 1997 by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser. Excerpted by permission of Broadway Books, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.