Our new book study is here!  We will be going through Sally Goddard Blythe’s “The Well Balanced Child: Movement and Early Learning”

The foreword to the book begins by stating this book is written by a therapist (Goddard Blythe is a physiological psychologist), and is an exploration of the “age-old truth “Sound body, sound mind”, and explains why early movement is vital for developing sound balance as well as the interrelated and dependent foundations for normal or sound language, learning, cognition, and affect.”

Harold Levinson, the MD who wrote this foreword, states that his research in 1973 was the first to understand “that the many and diverse symptoms characterizing dyslexia and related learning, sensory-motor, attention deficit, and anxiety or phobic disorders were caused by medically diagnosable and treatable  signal –scrambling dysfunction within the inner ear and its “super-computer”, the cerebellum…” and states that this book will be helpful to parents and professionals interested in children.

The guest introduction by Ewout Van-Manen talks about how difficult parenting is these days due to a lack of community, the lack of practical task for children to participate in, and how mothers today are divided between working and motherhood..and not to mention those conflicting books, articles and media reports of “how-to” parent.

“How do we sort through, and make sense of, this information in order to be in a position to make informed decisions as to what is best for our children?  Clearly, the best way to begin is to look at these issues is by looking at general child development.  It is only by understanding child development and by observing the children in our care that we can begin to be in a position to make appropriate, informed judgements and decisions”  .

On page xv:  “A society that does not promote the sensory development of its younger generation is at the same time diminishing its overall intellectual capacity.”

On to the author’s introduction to the book and Chapter One in our next book post!  Is everyone excited?

Many blessings,
Carrie