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

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

29.99 In Stock
The Crucial Years: The Essential Guide to Mental Health and Modern Puberty in Middle Childhood (Ages 6-12)

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

by Sheryl Gonzalez Ziegler
The Crucial Years: The Essential Guide to Mental Health and Modern Puberty in Middle Childhood (Ages 6-12)

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

by Sheryl Gonzalez Ziegler

Hardcover

$29.99 
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Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780063378650
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 05/06/2025
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

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™, 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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