Wise Words: How Susan Isaacs Changed Parenting

There are very few academics at the cutting edge of their field who can engage with parents and practitioners through everyday language and examples which chime with how it feels to be a parent or to work daily with other peoples’ children. This careful selection by Caroline Vollans of the letters from parents and replies of Susan Isaacs’ (known as Ursula Wise) in the 1930s editions of the much-respected Nursery World magazine demonstrated her genius in being able to do this. The book brings out the ability of Susan Isaacs to get alongside parents and also to influence the readers of Nursery World who are nannies, nurses, nursery nurses and teachers. She helps parents and practitioners to understand the children and giving them the possibility of acting in ways which help and comfort both child and themselves. Caroline Vollans notes that each letter is thought provoking, reassuring and helpful to read. Selecting which letters to include in the book was a challenge, but one to which she has risen with skill and has created a well organised framework showing the central aspects of Susan Isaac’s guidance for parents and practitioners. I missed my stop on the tube because it was such a thoroughly well put together book and an absorbing read.

Professor Tina Bruce, CBE, Honorary Visiting Professor in Early Childhood, University of Roehampton

Susan Isaacs is one of the hidden names of child development and education, who spent most of her adult life trying to understand and create the most appropriate ways in which adults can help children grow emotionally and cognitively. She was a patient and meticulous observer of children and bringing her work back into the public sphere is a great help for anyone wanting to understand how children tick.

Professor Michael Rosen, Professor of Children's Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London

This is an important book, providing recommendations and answers that remain valid for many of the problems facing children and parents today. Fearfulness, phobias, vivid fantasies; the learning of words, nervous strain, and eating problems - these concerns of parents in the 1930s find an immediate echo in today's world. The responses and discussions that are reprinted here are commentaries made by one of the most important of the psychoanalysts who developed Freud's work in this country: they are all moreover couched in ordinary language, and they aim to join together expert insights with a down-to-earth common sense. A phrase used by Susan Isaacs in these columns grasps the central theme of this work - she aims, she says, despite the difficulties of the developing relation between parent and child, to formulate this bond in terms of a "living relationship". Caroline Vollans does a great service to anyone with an interest in this primary relation between parent and child.

Professor Bernard Burgoyne, Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalysis, Middlesex University

This book is a fascinating read which will captivate early years specialists, parents and social historians alike. It is easy to read with accessible commentaries provided throughout.

Rebecca Swindells, Education Advisor and website content editor, The Foundation Stage Forum Ltd

All in all, this is a book to be welcomed and I am sure it will do well. It will encourage readers to rethink their assumptions about how to bring up children (if ‘bringing up’ children is what mothers and fathers do!). And it will help people to weigh up the advice they are offered, in the light of their assumptions. It should be read not only by students but by anyone interested in how to be a parent since it lays bare what complexities of understandings lie beneath those understandings.

The History of Education Journal