Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant

Reading the first page, thought they wrote this about our son! That was 34 years ago. Bought this for him and my daughter in law for their 6 and 5 year old boys. Doesn't fix anything, but sure helps to know they are normal. ☺️

I've never been one to consult so-called "parenting books" and this is not one of those, per se. As my daughter neared the age of 6, I found her behaviors to be increasingly vexing and our relationship started to deteriorate rapidly. I felt like I didn't know her anymore, as I did not understand the causes or motivations behind her most frustrating actions (or inactions). This book is slightly outdated (the section on discouraging boys and girls from playing together was particularly useless in my opinion), but offers up marvelous insight into why six-year-olds can literally love you to pieces one minute and hate your guts the next. A lot of time is devoted to exploring the six-year-old's relationship with his or her mother, which is helpful to me, of course. Not much help for dads here, as they're pretty much written off as not being around enough to help out with the children. LOL! I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to gain some insight into the self-centered world of the six-year-old - it really was worth the read.

I have all of these books up to "your six-year-old", and I find them very useful. I look to these to find out if what I notice going on with my child is, indeed, a (usually novel) age-related behavior/thought pattern, etc. and they have been very helpful for this. If you just page thru them, you may think they are a bit dated (the pics especially) but I see this as a good thing. The writers aren't writing from the perspective of the latest fad or "discovery" in studies of children, or just a book of pretty pictures, but are giving information based on years of observation of what children do at different stages. This is why it's useful to me--it's classic, easy-to-read, useful information that usually reassures me that my child is in the same stage of development that many others have passed through, and gives helpful advice for working with your child and easing conflicts. I appreciate that the "techniques" section is not just behavior modification techniques for immediate results (time outs, counting to ten, losing a toy temporarily, etc) but ideas to work WITH your child and understand their motivations. A great addition to your parenting library.

My favorite child development books!

The great thing about this book is that it outlines in a fairly short and straightforward manner what your childs development at this age looks like, what they may be going through physically, emotionally, and behaviorally. I was happy to read along and notice this or that milestone that my son had reached in addition to finding that some of the weirder things I notice at his age are perfectly within the boundaries of what is considered "normal". However this book is extremely dated. One example talks about teaching your daughter it is not acceptable to call boys on the phone with the added qualifier that it is the norm at the time the book is written. Some of the examples in the back of parents letters of concern are absolutely frightening by todays standards. However, I would still recommend this book because it really is helpful if you are wondering what kinds of things to expect at a certain age. Just take some of the old timey stuff with a grain of salt. I would love to see an updated version of this book made.

The Gesell Institute books are hands-down THE BEST books for parenting insights and advice that I have EVER read - and I have read a lot, running, as I do, a website on intuitive parenting. I've also done a lot of parenting, across nearly 40 years (my kids are 20 years apart), so I've parented during all the fads. The Gesell Institute books give sound, researched based insight into your child at each stage, and more than anything, what they give you is that sense of "Oh! This is normal! I *didn't* break my child or screw them up permanently!" And hey, we all need that. ;-) Seriously, these are some of the best books out there. If you are reading this review it's because you or someone in your life is either struggling with or wanting more information about parenting. GET THIS BOOK, I promise you it will make a difference.

I was really wondering if I was raising a complete jerk or what. My daughter turned 6 and was suddenly afraid - really afraid - of things she'd never been afraid of. She was also seemingly out of character with fits of anger, and most disturbing, she would lash out at me over everything, but not my husband. I knew that something wasn't right since she'd never acted like this before. I had read the other books in the series by these authors, so I bought this book. It was as if they wrote the book about my daughter. Everything she is currently manifesting is classic 6 year old behavior. The authors don't necessarily give helping hints to address the issues, but they do reinforce that this is all normal, and the best thing we can do as parents is understand that it will pass. Encourage your child to learn the skills to control these out of control emotions and provide a safe environment where they can mature through this difficult year. It has made all the difference in our house and I would highly recommend it for anyone with a 6 year old!

This is an incredible series! Get every book in the series as a baby present or for yourself. It gives outstanding developmentally correct information for every stage of a child’s life. There is a book from age 1-13.