As 'seasoned campaigners' we offer our readers more than 60 joint practice years of commonsense experience on children and their prob lems. Child care is a large and fascinating part of general family practice. More than any other discipline it is a mix of understanding the wide range of normal and abnormal development, of skilful diagnosis and treatment of treatable conditions, of long-term care for handicapped children, and of organizing and carrying out prevention. F or all this and more the physician has to rely on sound knowledge and understanding of the child, parents, family, social and community conditions, available services and the likely natural history of the condition - and to dispense all this with humanity, sense and sensi bility. We have divided the book logically into 6 sections: (I) Factual background. (2) Universal problems of behaviour and development. (3) Common clinical disorders, so frequent and yet often so dif ficult to manage. (4) Social,family and community factors that create and influ ence many problems of childhood. (5) How to use available services and resources with discrimina tion and sensitivity. (6) The importance of understanding and managing the whole child. We have no single group of readers in mind. We hope that our views will be appreciated, for example, by parents, nurses, health visitors, general practitioners, community physicians and paedia tricians - in fact all who care for children.
