The Child, the Family, and the Outside...

The Child, the Family, and the Outside World by D. W. Winnicott (Addison-Wesley: $8.95, paperback).

About 30 years ago, D. W. Winnicott, a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, gave a series of popular BBC lectures on raising children. His book compiles the best of these lectures, which range from early bonding to noting hints of infant aggression to tips for teachers of troubled children.

Freudian in approach yet shrewdly practical, Winnicott believes the “best mothering comes out of natural self-reliance.” You don’t have to be smart or well educated to raise a normal child, but you do need good, perhaps “laid-back,” instincts.

Despite the intervening years, many will enjoy and profit from Winnicott’s views of mothercraft (we call it parenting).