A comprehensive guide to a new way of working with out-of-home care of young children from an anthroposophical perspective. Part One gives a picture of how the day nursery can support the development of the child through an understanding of the fourfold human sheaths, emulating the archetypal home. Part Two goes into further detail about practical matters, including food, sleep, festivals, and more. Includes examples from the author's groundbreaking work at the Awhina Day Nursery in New Zealand, as well as charming photographs of the Awhina children."
Waldorf Early Childhood Association
of North America

This book is about a new approach to childcare based on twenty-five years of practice from an anthroposophical understanding of the human being. It is concerned with what is involved in providing support of the child and family in the day nursery, based on the understanding of the archetypal home and the homemaker. The focus is on the practices at the Awhina Day Nursery in New Zealand. What spoke to me was the consciousness with which the practices were penetrated in order to protect the development of body, soul and spirit in the most healthy way."
Marjorie Thatcher
Director, Early Childhood Program
West Coast Institute for Studies in Anthroposophy, British Columbia, Canada

Childcare has become more readily available in the past few decades, growing from something relatively small to a burgeoning "industry." It has become a product-oriented industry, which sees infants and young children cared for in group situations, usually defined by age and with as many as thirty children, sometimes more, in any one group. In New Zealand, childcare is strongly supported by a government that is encouraging one could almost say pressuring mothers back into the workforce, ostensibly for the good of the women and the country . . . but what about the children? This is a book about childcare from a different perspective. It is about the life of the family, of which the child is an intrinsic part. The child cannot be separated off from the family when we discuss childcare. This book is about supporting the family of today by offering a form of childcare that both respects and emulates the home, a form of childcare that embraces nurturing practices of the home and family, and at the same time provides a role model for the parent.   --From the Introduction by Bernadette Raichle


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