The Triumphant Child

‘Dr. Olson Huff and his daughter-in-law, Nicole Rawson-Huff, have done parents a great service by bringing together experts in the field to share knowledge, practical tips and relevant experience that really works, on what parents can do every day to raise resilient, triumphant children.’

Some of the most knowledgeable experts in pediatric health, practical parenting and child development from around the world have collaborated to create The Triumphant Child: A Practical Guide for Raising Two, Three and Four Year Olds.

This book is a fresh new approach to parenting based on traditional principles. It is a must-have for all moms, dads and grandparents as they go about their role of raising young children.

Olson Huff MD believes that parents want the very best for their children and seek in every way possible the guidance and support necessary to achieve it.

This is why Dr Huff and his daughter-in-law, Nicole Rawson-Huff have compiled and edited these useful and practical chapters for raising two, three and four year olds. These chapters are further supported by parent stories and practical parenting tips throughout the book.

Child development specialist, Nicole Rawson-Huff, explains that ‘a triumphant child is resilient, confident, self aware, knows their boundaries and shows concern for others’.

The Triumphant Child: A Practical Guide for Raising Two, Three and Four Year Olds will guide the reader through:

• Growth and development of children
• Routines and daily living
• What to do about aggressive behavior
• Sibling rivalry
• Discipline and setting boundaries
• The media and how it affects young children
• Dealing with divorce, economic crisis and other major events
• Changes in the life of a young child
• Fears and anxieties and how to overcome them

‘Parents will feel fortunate to have The Triumphant Child at their fingertips every day as they tackle the challenges and celebrate the successes of raising children. I wish this book had been around when my children were two, three and four years old!’

‘Dr. Olson Huff and his daughter-in-law, Nicole Rawson-Huff, have done the parents of young children a great service, by bringing together experts in the field to speak to the practical daily issues of rearing children in their most formative years. I agree with the authors that most parents love their children and want what is best for them.  However, many of those parents genuinely don't know 'what is best'.  After all, the child did not come with a parent's manual.  Many of those who have sought to provide such a manual have written in such academic terms that the average parent has gotten lost in the linguistics. The Triumphant Child is not designed to be a comprehensive manual, but it does give clear, understandable, information of the major issues that concern parents of two, three and four year olds.
 
The reader will find insight in how children develop, the value of routines, basic parenting skills, typical fears which children experience, how to respond to common 'attention getting' behavior, and what to do about media exposure. Every parent I know would welcome a book like that; and I think they will.’
 

‘The Triumphant Child is an indispensable resource filled with practical tips and time-tested wisdom from a panel of seasoned experts in pediatric health and development. Parents will feel fortunate to have this book at their fingertips every day as they tackle the challenges and celebrate the successes of raising young children. With so much useful information gathered in one place, The Triumphant Child will provide parents with quick answers and helpful advice, making life with two, three and four year olds easier, more rewarding and enjoyable, as well as more engaging for the child. I wish this book had been around when my kids were this age!’’


‘Along with six  knowledgeable colleagues, renowned pediatrician Olson Huff and his daughter-in-law, Nicole Rawson-Huff have assembled a series of seven chapters to assist parents in anticipating and understanding the developmental issues facing their young children from ages two through four years. The author of each chapter has clearly portrayed the challenges in physical, emotional and intellectual development, the requisite skills required in parenting, the management of routines, the insecurities associated with the evolution of changes as well as the fears and anxieties generated by them, and the potential threats of unselected media (TV, computer, cinema, electronic games). Examples drawn from the authors’ own families as well as others whom they have counseled are inserted as relevant illustrations.

This is a publication of value for young parents, both to be read in its entirety in advance, and then to be consulted as the individual situations are confronted in their children’s maturation. The presentations are clear and the instructions and suggestions are realistic and practical.  Although the emphasis is on the challenges, Dr. Huff and Ms Rawson-Huff are especially emphatic in calling clear attention to the gratification and rewards of parenting. One can recommend this book with confidence that its content will be of great assistance and reassurance to young parents and thereby to their children.’

‘Thank you Sixty Second Parent! Your expert advice has made me feel like I’m not alone with my challenges as a parent of an active three year old, and your practical tips have made my job far less stressful.’


‘We have two year old twins and what we loved most about The Triumphant Child book is that we can really relate to the authors. They are moms and dads like us and their knowledge and experience has been so helpful for us.’

Scott and Gigi Robertson, North Carolina

‘Very topical, great read, good to have on my bookshelf as a reference book also.’

Sharon Porter, Virginia

‘At last, a book that doesn’t claim to have all the answers and yet, extremely useful and practical in assisting me to understand why my four year old behaves the way he does. Thank you.’

Charmaine Strange, Kentucky

Olson Huff MD FAAP - Biography
Olson’s life has been one of many accomplishments as a father, husband, grandparent and as one of America’s most respected Pediatricians. His significant contributions to the field of Pediatrics has spanned over 35 years.

Olson dedicated most of his career to focusing on children with special health care needs and the expansion of health care services to all children. He helped create a mobile dental program for underprivileged children in rural areas and developed the Olson Huff Center for Child Development as a model of interdisciplinary care for children with developmental disabilities of all kinds.

Olson has consulted with a number of children’s foundations such as the Mission Healthcare Foundation and The Duke Endowment. In addition to those roles, he has served on a number of boards and commissions in North Carolina and nationally and was elected as president of the Board of the North Carolina Pediatric Society Foundation.

He was also invited as Fellow to a number of institutes such as the Action for Children North Carolina. In this capacity, Olson focused on policy issues for health and safety of children. He is currently continuing his advocacy for children as chairman of the Committee on Federal Government Affairs of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Olson serves as co-chairman of the Task Force on Obesity and Nutrition of the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund Commission which resulted in recommendations that have changed policies in North Carolina affecting activity and nutrition in public schools.

Olson’s efforts have not gone unnoticed as he has been awarded a number of notable honors including the David Tayloe Senior award from the North Carolina Pediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics Special Recognition Award for increasing access to dental health care for children. The Lewis Hine Award from the National Child Labor Committee was also awarded to Olson in 2007 for his work to improve health care for low income children.

Olson’s literary achievements include his self-penned book, The Window of Childhood: Glimpses of Wonder and Courage. Olson has also written extensively on issues relating to children’s health and children with special health care needs, and co-authored a chapter on evaluation of learning problems in school age children published in Developmental Pediatrics. Olson now serves as a member of the editorial board of the North Carolina Medical Journal.

Along with collaborating with Nicole on the Triumphant Child book series Olson is a regular contributor to the Sixty Second Parent website. He is a proud grandfather of four grandchildren and in his spare time loves working in the garden.

Nicole Rawson-Huff - Biography
Nicole is a child development specialist with more than 20 years experience in working with parents and young children. She is a Certified ‘Parents as Teachers’ Educator, which empowers parents to build the skills necessary to help children make the most of their crucial early-learning years.

She trained as a Child Life Specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Nicole is also a Certified Facilitator for ‘Raising Kids with Special Needs’. She has joined a number of projects supporting parents of children with special needs around the world. Nicole has been the founding manager of TotLine, a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, parent information phone line. Along with collaborating with Olson on the Triumphant Child book series Nicole is a regular contributor to the Sixty Second Parent website.

She is the mother of two wonderful children aged 4 and 7. In her spare time she has co-authored over eight international publications on the psycho-social health of children with cancer and is currently the Production Officer of the Psycho-Social Update Quarterly Review.

Anne Oxenreider – Biography
Anne Oxenreider’s entire career is based around families and young children. She has a Master’s degree in Education, as a result of her enthusiasm for preschool parenting. This passion has led her into numerous roles including that of grant writer for human service organizations, director of a community-wide preschool parent program, preschool teacher, mother, and foster parent. Her varied roles as an administrator, educator and parent are evidence of her enduring commitment to families and young children.

Building on this preschool parenting philosophy, Anne directed a preschool parenting project that funded local family centers and launched a multi-year preschool parenting campaign that included positive parenting messages on television, radio, fast food kid’s meal bags, and other promotional items. Anne is committed to community work and she applied and won multiple private and state grants receiving funds for community for family resource centers in her community. In addition, Anne worked with a community task force that launched a minority infant mortality reduction program.

Anne and her husband have had the privilege of foster parenting four preschool children and are beginning the process of foster-to-adopt a preschool child. Anne is currently the part-time director of a college writing center and working on a second Master’s degree in English composition.

Margaret Taylor – Biography
Margaret Taylor holds a M.Ed. degree in Counseling from Clemson University, and a B.A. in Psychology from Davidson College. She is a Nationally Certified Counselor and worked as a licensed professional counselor for eight years in a variety of settings including public mental health treatment, private residential treatment and private practice. Her primary focus as a counselor has been with children and parents coping with emotional problems related to grief and trauma. For the last nine years, her focus has been on parenting two children with her husband in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

Kim J Masters M.D. – Biography
Kim J Masters MD has been a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist for over 25 years and during that time he has worked with families and children across the spectrum of psychiatric illness. He served for 15 years as the Director of Youth Services for Appalachian Hall Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. He was medical director of Focus by the sea, a general psychiatric hospital in St Simons Island, Georgia. There, as Assistant Clinical Professor of Health and Behavior, Medical College of Georgia, he taught medical students psychiatry and treated both children and adults in an inpatient and outpatient setting.

Currently he is Medical Director of Three Rivers Midlands Campus Residential Treatment Center, where he teaches psychiatry to Physician Assistant Students and is Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Health Professions, Medical University of South Carolina. In 1992 he wrote a book, Angry Child: Sleeping Giant or Paper Tiger.

He represents the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to the Professional and Technical Committee of the Joint Commission. His contribution for Sixty Second Parent reflects both current literature and clinical experience.

 
Dr Ross Campbell – Biography
Dr Ross Campbell discovered his life’s calling more than thirty years ago. He found himself fascinated by the inner dynamics of child development, and particularly by the crucial relationship between parent and child. He compiled a simple manual that identified, in plain language, the basics of good parenting. Ultimately, the effective manual found its way into the hands of publishers. The result was How to Really Love Your Child, a book that experienced phenomenal sales numbered in the millions across the world. In subsequent years, he has added books on parenting in special areas such as teenagers.

His book, How To Really Love Your Teenager, won the Gold Medallion Award. Other books included Helping Your Twenty-Something Get A Life And Get It Now. He even wrote a volume for grandparents. Dr Campbell has also written extensively on dealing with anger in children; a subject he believes to be crucial. In collaboration with Dr Gary Chapman, he has also authored the bestselling Five Love Languages of Children.

Dr Campbell is a former Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. He has counseled thousands of parents over three decades of practice. Having retired from active counseling, he focuses today on writing and lecturing on parenting topics for an ever-changing cultural world with its challenges for the modern family.

Dr Campbell and his wife, Ann, live in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. Between them, they have 7 adult children and 15 grandchildren.

Susan Mims, MD MPH – Biography
Dr. Mims is the Medical Director of Mission Children’s Hospital in Asheville, NC. She leads Mission Children’s Hospital as it grows to meet the healthcare needs of children in western NC and to promote children’s health throughout the region. Prior to joining Mission in 2006, Dr. Mims worked for six years with Buncombe County’s public health department and the largest provider of indigent care in the county. She served as the county Medical Director, leading disease outbreak investigations as well as overseeing the clinical work of the department.

Prior to coming to Asheville, Dr. Mims practiced primary care medicine in Durham, NC. She received her medical degree as well as her Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from UNC Chapel Hill. Dr. Mims continued at UNC Hospitals for a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. She also completed a Preventive Medicine Residency at UNC. Dr. Mims is board certified in all three specialties.

While working and living in Asheville, she is very active in many national, state and community health organizations and spends time advocating for children’s health issues. Dr. Mims enjoys living in Asheville with her husband and two sons, ages 10 and 8.

The story behind the book

 
America as we have known it has changed. For many, concerns of repaying mortgages are second only to the worry about those that depend on them … their children. As we endure these times of uncertainty and change, we need more than ever to find ways to raise resilient children that may triumph over these difficult times.

A group of leading experts, in the field of child health and development, believe that there are very practical and relevant things parents can do every day that work. This allows parents to raise a triumphant child who may take on what the world is going to throw at them, has a good sense of self and not only survives, but thrives.

On a mission to assist parents to do just this, is leading US Pediatrician Dr Olson Huff. Together with his daughter-in-law and child development specialist, Nicole Rawson-Huff, and a team of five other experts, Olson and Nicole have compiled a practical guide book, like no other. Olson and Nicole's vision started in 1997 when the two developed a series of radio messages called 'The One Minute Parent'. The popular program provided practical tips on raising children, child health and development, and was successfully syndicated throughout North Carolina.

For many years, friends and colleagues urged Olson and Nicole to publish these tips in a book for parents. In September 2008, they decided to go one step further by launching a new parenting website called Sixty Second Parent (www.sixtysecondparent.com). The dynamic and innovative site provides avenues for bringing together many experts in the field of child health and development, where they share their knowledge and connect with parents through online forums. The success of the website has fuelled Olson and Nicole's passion for making a positive difference to the lives of parents and has lead to the development of the first book in a series, called 'The Triumphant Child'.

In their years of talking and listening to parents about raising children, Olson and Nicole observed that parents craved information containing three key elements:

1.    Expert knowledge and advice;
2.    Practical tips and hints that can be accessed quickly; and
3.    Stories from other parents.

Using this knowledge, 'The Triumphant Child: A Practical Guide to Raising Two, Three, and Four Year Olds', offers expert advice, practical tips and real life parenting stories. The book provides case studies where parents can read about what works and what doesn’t from other parents who have experienced and overcome daily challenges such as routines, aggressive behavior, eating difficulties, fears, anxieties and general child health and development issues.

Due to be launched in the US in March 2009, ‘The Triumphant Child', is collecting positive reviews from relevant and well known authors and experts in the field, such as Sara Ellington (co-author of Mommy Chronicles), Gary D. Chapman, Ph.D. (author of The Five Love Languages of Children and The Five Love Languages), and Samuel Katz, MD (Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Duke University). Their reviews recommend the book with confidence that its content will be of great assistance and reassurance to young parents and thereby their children.

Written with love and care as its core principle, 'The Triumphant Child' offers a full scope of strategies for positively taking on the challenges and celebrating the successes that children present to parents each day.

What is a triumphant child?
A triumphant child:
•    Has an enthusiasm for life and positive outlook whatever their circumstances
•    Is a persistent and creative problem solver
•    Is eager to learn and succeed
•    Feels special and knows they are loveable - has good self-esteem and has a strong sense of personal and family identity and their place in the world
•    Is willing to try and willing to risk making mistakes in order to learn
•    Is caring towards others and is beginning to develop a sense of empathy
•    Is motivated to communicate their ideas, feelings and stories in a variety of ways.
•    Has a sense of independence and autonomy
•    Is flexible and leaning to cope with stress and change
•    Has a developing sense of and respect for boundaries

What does parenting a triumphant child mean?
Parenting a triumphant child means:
•    Creating a loving, positive environment – loving and believing in your child, yourself and your family unconditionally
•    Letting your child make mistakes, but supporting them when they need help
•    Being caring and empathetic towards your child and others
•    Enjoys and makes the most of their time with their children.
•    Fosters their child’s self-esteem by giving them developmentally appropriate responsibilities
•    Listen actively and communicate effectively with your child
•    Discipline their children in a way that fosters self-discipline and self-esteem
•    Helping children to set realistic goals and have realistic expectations
•    Having the wisdom to create developmentally appropriate boundaries.