When Your Child Is 6 to 12

Introduction This little book discusses a most intriguing time of childhood called middle childhood-those years when a child is ages six to twelve. We could call this period "the missing age of childhood," because these years are too seldom researched or written about. Yet these are prime years for particular preparation for adolescence and adulthood. Here is the great age of imitation when the child wants so much to be like parents and others whom the child admires, when the child will go to almost any extent to be like those who are the child's heroes. Children at this age seek to excel in areas for which they have received compliments and try to please persons whom they admire. The burden and conviction which I bring to this book are that, while all stages of child development are significant, middle childhood is especially crucial in the development of the inner life, which prepares the child for the rest of life. Here the foundations are laid for the teen years. And since the middle years pass so rapidly and with relative ease because the child loves to please, parents are inclined to miss the nurturing and preparation so essential during the years six through twelve. Much of what I share on the following pages I have discovered not only through studies, but also from exchanges with many parents in retreats, as well as seminars and more specialized meetings and classes. I give primary emphasis to children's moral and emotional development. I touch very little on their physical development. Children have a primary need to be loved by their parents. But, in child-rearing, love is not the only prerequisite for parenthood. Understanding is a second great requirement. The child needs a love which carries a special kind of insight into the child's world, which feeds the child's spirit. This love should give the child the inner strength to build firm and healthy concepts about self and about life itself. In addition, the child needs the kind of moral guidance which gives the child a sense of responsibility and reverence, in order to make right decisions and to respect other people. May those of you who are at the job of rearing children be helped by what you read here. May you find good hope and encouragement as you parent and prepare your children for adolescence and beyond. -John M. DrescherChapter 1. Parents' Last Great Opportunity Middle childhood is a stage often swept over too quickly by parents and educators because it is so calm compared to the storm of adolescence. If children will ever be good, they will be good during these years. And so parents assume that all is going rather well during this time because the child, on the whole, seems cooperative, wants to please, and loves to be with the family. It is not overstating the situation to think of this stage of childhood as "the last chance." It is the time to do many things with and for your children which you will not be able to do in the same way or to the same extent again.Holding Your Child "Have you hugged your child today?" is a popular slogan and bumper sticker. It is still a good question for parents. The child who does not receive daily expressions of love during the middle years will, in a few short years, reach out for love in wrong ways and to persons parents will react against in a critical way. Middle childhood is the last good chance to hold your child close. Most children up until the ages of eleven or twelve love to be held and respond lovingly to a hug or kiss from parents. A child basks in the warmth of parental love. A child needs the assurance of being loved deeply and the security of feeling at ease in the arms of parents. An adolescent is unlikely to feel close and cared for by parents if the warmth of love and togetherness is not experienced prior to the turbulent teens. In the middle years, the child's most important reason for wanting to be good is not fear of punishment or disapprovaDrescher, John M. is the author of 'When Your Child Is 6 to 12', published 1993 under ISBN 9781561480944 and ISBN 1561480940.