All posts by Pam Linke

Pam Linke is a social worker who has done further study in Early Childhood Education. She has spent many years working with parents, maternal child health nurses and early childhood educators, particularly in relationship to children’s social and emotional development. She has a special interest in the development of resilience. Currently, she works as a consultant in early childhood and parenting. Prior to this, she was Strategic Manager, Parenting, for the South Australian Children, Youth and Women’s Health Service. She had a major role in initiating and developing the state-wide Family Home Visiting program for parents of infants up to two years of age. Pam also set up and managed the crisis intervention family therapy program, and managed children’s residential care services for CentreCare. Pam is a past president of the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health and has served on a number of other Boards, including Early Childhood Australia. She has written many books for parents and early childhood professionals, including, recently, First Year at School (co-author) and Your Child from Birth to Eight. She was the initial content author of the Child and Youth Health (SA Government website for parents), which won a national award. She has been awarded nationally and internationally for her contribution to children’s health and wellbeing, and advocacy for children.

Thoughts about change

Everyone has experienced a change one way or another in 2020. PAM LINKE shares her perspective on change for children, the impact of the unknown and what we can do as adults to support their feelings. Pam is also the author of an ECA publication, Managing change: Everyday learning about babies, toddlers and preschoolers—a helpful […]

Sleep in early childhood

Sleep and young children is a contested area. People have different practices and approaches, whether they are families, educational settings or others. In this blog, PAM LINKE explores the importance of sleep for very young children and the different sleep needs of adults and young children. Early Childhood Australia (ECA) has a range of different […]

Young children’s reactions to stress

Infants and young children cannot always tell us that they are upset or explain what is worrying them. So it helps to know about the way they send messages, or their cues. These can be different for different children but there are some common ones to look out for. Changes in behaviour are often the […]

Protective behaviours

Child abuse, and especially child sexual abuse, concerns everyone who works with children.  Over the last thirty plus years protective behaviours programs of different kinds have been developed and used to try to help protect children from this kind of abuse. These programs are usually provided in schools or early childhood services such as preschools. […]

Controlled Crying?

In this second part of a two-part blog series on the controversial topic of controlled crying, PAM LINKE examines the young child’s attachment and wellbeing. The first blog, written by Dr Anna Price and originally published on The Conversation more than three years ago, examined research into controlled crying, parent sleep and post natal depression. Since that time, ECA […]

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