Getting to Know You

This user-friendly guide uses narrative storytelling to describes the principles of early relational health with direct application to day-to-day work with infants and parents.

Practitioners on the front lines often feel great pressure to know “what to do” in a wide range of challenging situations. Drawing on both developmental science and extensive clinical experience, Dr. Gold provides evidence that the exact opposite—a stance of not-knowing—helps us find our way into another person’s experience, offering the greatest opportunity for connection, growth, and healing.

Gold presents a model of “listening in” with an intentional suspension of expectations and a willingness to be surprised. The paradigm of listening in functions as a kind of superpower to enhance teacher–student, professional–parent, and parent–infant relationships. Getting to Know You is important reading for a broad variety of practitioners working with infants, including early childhood educators, home visitors, pediatricians, doulas, and mental health clinicians, as well as policymakers, parents, and other caregivers.

Book Features:

• Summarizes the key advances in our understanding of brain science, child development, and infant-parent mental health.
• Emphasizes lessons from real-life interactions between infants and caregivers as communicated through detailed clinical vignettes.
• Offers practitioners a model for listening that is rooted in the concept of cultural humility and the idea that even in sameness there is difference.

Claudia M. Gold, MD, is a pediatrician and writer who practiced general pediatrics for over 20 years and now specializes in early relational health. She has clinical experience working in many different communities and speaks frequently to audiences of both parents and professionals.

“Each reader will take away something unique to their professional and personal journeys. But I imagine that most readers will catch a sense of wonder and encouragement about this beautifully human thing we call ‘relationship.’”
—From the Foreword by Junlei Li, Saul Zaentz senior lecturer in early childhood education, co-chair, Human Development and Education Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Regardless of your role in the many relationships you have with children, we hope the stories in this book will resonate with you as they have for us so that you, too, will experience this paradox: Alongside the not-knowing stance is a deep kind of knowing that can only be achieved together."
—From the Afterword by Lisa Matter, IMH-E infant family specialist, and Hoda Shawky, pediatric clinical and maternal child health equity consultant, Noorture, LLC

"It is the rare author who can weave the complexities of the brain, human development, parenting, family, culture, and history into a coherent and beautiful tapestry. Claudia Gold shares her expertise and experiences in compelling and clear prose. The use of clinical vignettes brings life to the concepts in powerful and practical ways. Any parent or professional working with children will find this book enjoyable and engaging. It provides compelling evidence to value and center early childhood as crucial to the health and welfare of the child, family, community, and culture."
—Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, principal, Neurosequential Network

“This book provides a practical and engaging translation of complex biopsychosocial theories into clear, accessible language that everyday parents and multidisciplinary early childhood professionals can readily understand. I found myself smiling at engaging visual images that succinctly depict the meaning of socioemotional relationship processes. Thoughtful, reflective questions throughout the book help practitioners critically reflect on the role of race, racism, and the legacies of historical trauma in early relational health. This process of centering is one of the few relationship-based techniques that intentionally shifts the frame from the familiar parent-blaming to a stance of ‘not knowing.’ I highly recommend the ‘listening in model’ as a gold standard to create authentic working relationships and understand the multicultural experiences of families and young children.”
—Marva L. Lewis, IMH-E® Infant Mental Health Mentor-Research/Faculty, Endorsed by the National Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health, Clinical Faculty, Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tulane University School of Medicine.