The RIE Manual for Parents and Professionals Expanded Edition

Author(s): Edited by Magda Gerber

Early Childhood Education

The original RIE Manual is a collection of papers written by Magda Gerber, Dr. Emmi Pikler and staff of the Pikler Institute. This collection of papers describes a special way of seeing and caring for infants. It is of value to all people concerned with infant care, including parents, infant carers, educators, physicians, therapists, those who implement day care programs, as well as those who advise or consult with parents.


The RIE Manual Expanded Edition, published in 2013, contains Magda Gerber’s original RIE Manual in its entirety, and has over 90 pages of new material that cover key topics such as:




  • How RIE relates to current neuroscience

  • Supporting competence in a child with special needs

  • Sharing RIE with adults

  • Examining RIE environments

  • Observing and facilitating play


The collection begins with practical suggestions for parents. Part II includes Magda Gerber's writings and teachings. Gerber uses the Pikler philosophy and methodology in her work. Resources for Infant Educarers was founded to incorporate and disseminate this philosophy, referred to as the RIE approach. Part III contains speeches and articles by Emmi Pikler and her staff. Pikler directed the National Methodological Institute for Residential Nurseries in Budapest, Hungary. Part IV is the new material, edited by Deborah Greenwalkd with Joan Weaver, as outlined above.



Product Information

'Magda Gerber's wisdom is available to all, right here in this book. What a treasure!' - Janet Gonzalez-Mena, co-author of Infants, Toddlers and Caregivers

'This new edition of The RIE Manual is a comprehensive resurce on Gerber's Educaring Approach for college couses an anyone concerned iwth the care of infants and toddlers.' --Ruth Anne Hammond, Pacific Oaks College and Children's School and author of Respecting Babies.

Magda Gerber (died April 27, 2007) was an early childhood educator.

Gerber was born in Hungary, she received a degree in linguistics at the Sorbonne in France. The seeds for her passion for infant care come from pediatrician Emmi Pikler. Pikler's innovative theories on infant care were successfully tested during the course of her tenure as medical director of Loczy, a state-run orphanage in Budapest. Gerber incorporated many of Pikler's theories into her own philosophy, which she termed RIE (pronounced "wry") or Resources for Infant Educarers. The term educarer, which she also coined, refers to either a parent or other caregiver, and emphasizes the role that they play in both caring and educating.

Gerber emigrated with her family to the United States in 1957, and developed and directed the Pilot Infant Program at the Dubnoff School. In 1973 she began teaching parent/infant classes, and in 1980 she founded the RIE Center in Los Angeles.

In 1997 she wrote Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child's Natural Abilities from the Very Start (with Allison Johnson), and in 2003 she wrote Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect (with Joan Weaver).


This Expanded Edition has been edited by Deborah Greenwald with Joan Weaver

General Fields

  • : 9781892560087
  • : Resources for Infant Educarers
  • : Resources for Infant Educarers
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Edited by Magda Gerber