The Crucial Years: The Essential Guide to Mental Health and Modern Puberty in Middle Childhood (Ages 6-12) [Hardcover]

An essential guide for parents and caregivers, this parenting guide offers insights, strategies, and understanding to navigate middle childhood (ages 612). Dr. Sheryl Gonzalez Ziegler, a seasoned clinical psychologist and mother, highlights ways to foster resilience, encourage open communication, and build lasting connections during this crucial period of child development.

There is a pivotal sea change happening. The age of puberty has been trending earlier for decades, and now starts as young as 8 years old in girls and 9 in boys. Bullying doesnt just happen on the playground, but over text and DM.?Anxiety in children is drastically on the rise. Couple earlier puberty with ill-equipped, developing brains and the onslaught of new media and stressors that never existed when we were kids, and its clear that parents need a new guide for raising children in this new generation.

The Crucial Yearsis your essential handbook for parenting tweens and navigating the often misunderstood and overlooked years of middle childhood (ages 612). As a mom and clinical psychologist, Dr. Sheryl Ziegler knows firsthand how challenging these years can be, offering tools for emotional regulation and improving child mental health. Dr. Ziegler masterfully unlocks the enigma surrounding modern puberty and offers evidence-based strategies, interventions, and answers to middle childhoods most perplexing questions and concerns. In these pages, she provides:

• Science-based advice to recognize and navigate puberty.
• Candid and actionable guidance for getting your kids to talk about their complicated feelings and understanding their moods.
• Insights into the changing world of gender and sexual identity, body image and disordered eating.
• A clear explanation of the invisible threads linking mood swings, self-confidence, and social media exposure.
• Road-tested, real-world guidance to handle social stress and other pressures.