Children are not in a position to assess risk and safety; it must be done for them, and it must be done carefully.

Despite the fact that he fathered ten children, Dickens, the write, never gave up his position as a child. He identified with children and with the child-like - those who are not in power and who suffer under the fickle and often sadistic demands of those who are.

Sleep resistance, bouts of insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, crawling into bed with parents in the middle of the night - all these are so common among children, it seems fair to call them 'normal.'

There is no reason we should expect young children to enter the nocturnal darkness of sleep and dreams without help.

Bedtime rituals for children ease the way to the elsewhere of slumber - teeth brushing and pajamas, the voice of a parent reading, the feel and smell of the old blanket or toy, the nightlight glowing in a corner.

The mind-brain is lived only from a first-person perspective, and it is a dynamic, plastic organ that changes in relation to the environment.