The Crucial Years

An essential guide for parents and caregivers, this book offers insights, strategies, and understanding to navigate middle childhood (ages 6-12). 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.

There is a pivotal sea change happening in children's development. 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 doesn't just happen on the playground, but over text and DM. Depression and anxiety are 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 it's clear that parents need a new guide to raise this new generation.

The Crucial Years is your essential handbook to navigating the often misunderstood and overlooked years of middle childhood (ages 6-12). As a mom and clinical psychologist, Dr. Sheryl Ziegler knows firsthand how challenging these years can be for some and for others how they are years where a parent thinks they can finally catch their breath in between the gap from preschool and middle school. Dr. Ziegler masterfully unlocks the enigma surrounding modern puberty and offers evidence-based strategies, interventions, and answers to middle childhood's 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.

With The Crucial Years, you have all that you need to guide your child through the unexpected ups and downs of puberty and help them emerge as well-rounded, confident teens.

"The Crucial Years is more than a book--it is a road map for any adult supporting children. Dr. Ziegler addresses science and strategies that aim to strengthen our children and ourselves. Forward thinking and prevention based, The Crucial Years is a must read!" -- Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play

"An essential read for every parent. The elementary school years are a time of incredible growth and change and can also be fraught with challenges that you don't see coming. Dr. Ziegler prepares you for tough conversations so you can raise happier, healthier kids who quickly become happier and healthier teens." -- Dr. Michele Borba, educational psychologist and author of Thrivers

"The Crucial Years is the ultimate survival guide.... Reassuring, empowering and grounded in research, this book is a must-have roadmap for any parent seeking to preserve their child's well-being as they make their way through middle childhood." -- Phyllis L. Fagell, licensed therapist, school counselor, and author of Middle School Matters

"No longer the forgotten years, The Crucial Years redefines the ages from 6-12 as a time of opportunity to educate and empower kids. With puberty beginning much earlier, Ziegler provides a developmental framework for understanding the intersection of kids physical and emotional transformation during middle childhood. Her clear explanations and parenting scripts will be a useful tool for any parent navigating this period!" -- Vanessa Kroll Bennett, co-author of This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained

"I wish this book were around when my kids were younger. At least I have an excuse for doing it all wrong." -- Karen Alpert, author of the New York Times bestseller I Heart My Little A-Holes

"Seems like every stage of childhood is fraught with some kind of anxiety -- often on the part of the parents! Sheryl Ziegler helps us realize that discomfort does not mean disaster, and that as our 'middle childhood' kids surprise and sometimes worry us, that's not only normal, it's good. Changes ahead! Yikes! Yay!" -- Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids

Dr. Sheryl Gonzalez Ziegler is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Denver, with more than two decades of experience treating tweens, teens and their families in the areas of anxiety, trauma, depression, chronic stress and adjustment disorders. Ziegler is the creator of Start with The Talk(TM), a puberty skills course for parents and kids available in-person and online that has helped over a thousand families and counting. She's a nationally recognized expert on the intersection of puberty and mental health and is regularly featured in the media as such. She is the author of Mommy Burnout: How to Reclaim your Life and Raise Healthier Children (Dey Street, 2018), which won Best Parenting Book of the Year by the International Latino Book Awards Foundation.

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