Your Six-Year-Old - Loving and Defiant

Informationen zum Autor Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D. and Frances L. Ilg, M.D. Klappentext The six-year-old is a complex child, entirely different from the five-year-old. Though many of the changes are for the good -- Six is growing more mature, more independent, more daring and adventurous -- this is not necessarily an easy time for the little girl or boy. Relationships with mothers are troubled -- most of the time Six adores mother, but whenever things go wrong, it's her fault. It used to be, at Five, that she was the center of the child's universe; now, the child is the center of his own universe. Parents need the expert advice of Drs. Ames and Ilg during this difficult year, to explain parent-child relations, friendships with peers, what six-year-olds excel at, how they see the world, what it feels like to be entering the first grade. Children need patience and understanding to help make this transition easier.chapter one CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE     Your typical Six-year-old is a paradoxical little person, and bipolarity is the name of his game. Whatever he does, he does the opposite just as readily. In fact, sometimes just the choice of some certain object or course of action immediately triggers an overpowering need for its opposite.   The Six-year-old is wonderfully complex and intriguing, but life can be complicated for him at times, and what he needs most in the world is parents who understand him. For Six is not just bigger and better than Five. He is almost entirely different. He is different because he is changing, and changing rapidly. Though many of the changes are for the good—he is, obviously, growing more mature, more independent, more daring, more adventurous—this is not necessarily an easy time for the child.   “Six is a hard age to be,” confided one little boy to his mother.   One of the many things that makes life difficult for him is that, as earlier at Two-and-a-half, he seems to live at opposite extremes. The typical Six-year-old is extremely ambivalent. He wants both of any two opposites and sometimes finds it almost impossible to choose.   “I want to and I don’t want to,” said one little girl when asked at a party why she didn’t go to the table and get herself a cookie.   Or, we have a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay which beautifully characterizes the Six-year-old’s difficulty in making a choice:   “Come along in then, little girl, Or else stay out!” But in the open door she stands And bites her lips and twists her hands And stares upon me trouble-eyed: “Mother,” she says, “I can’t decide! I can’t decide!”   One specific example of Six’s oppositeness is his frequent reversal of letters and numbers as he reads or prints. This tendency toward reversal is one of the many reasons why we prefer to delay the formal teaching of reading, both at home and at school. Six’s reversals are truly something to be reckoned with.   Six is also stubborn. It is hard for him to make his mind up about big things, but once made up, it is hard to change. About small things, however, he does change rapidly. A choice of vanilla ice cream may immediately lead to a sudden realization that it was really chocolate he wanted all along, and if you change your order to chocolate he may swing back to vanilla.   One of the Six-year-old’s biggest problems is his relationship with his mother. It gives him the greatest pleasure and the greatest pain. Most adore their mother, think the world of her, need to be assured and reassured that she loves them. At the same time, whenever things go wrong, they take things out on her.   An example of this is that of the little girl who sat at the dinner table, arms folded, refusing to eat. When her mother urged her to eat, she replied coldly, “How can I? I have no spoon.”   At Five, Mother was the center of the child’s universe. At Six, things h...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Louise Bates Ames, Frances L Ilg, Frances L. Ilg
• Editore: Dell Publishing Inc.
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 15.04.1981
• EAN: 9780440506744
• ISBN: 978-0-440-50674-4
• Pagine: 144
• Dimensioni: 132 mm x 201 mm x 8 mm
• Categoria: Guide e manuali > Libri sul benessere, vita quotidiana > Condotta di vita, auto-realizzazione