Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant

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I did not understand the causes or motivations behind her most frustrating actions (or inactions).This book is slightly outdated (the section on discouraging boys and girls from playing together was particularly useless in my opinion), but offers up marvelous insight into why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.

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.

As many, many, many other reviewers have stated, the language and assumptions in the book are extremely old-fashioned. I knew that going in, so my expectations were not high. I skimmed through the "old-fashioned" parts and had the whole book read in about four hours.There are some really good pieces of advice, however, and putting these "tricks" to work has helped me immensely to get my daughter moving past the defiance, and on toward the loving. Truly. Our crossed arms, defiant moments are a thing of the past.TIP #1. DONT GIVE DIRECT ORDERS. Example: "Put your shoes on now" may result in defiance. For better results: "Which shoes do you want to wear? Okay! How fast can you put them on?"We do a lot of racing now, lol. With everything. How fast can you shower / get dressed / eat / get in the car. It works every time. I just have to remember to be enthusiastic with how fast it was accomplished. "WOW! I've never seen anyone get so clean so fast!"TIP #2. DONT GIVE DIRECT ORDERS. Seriously. Just don't. It's a really hard habit to break. "Go put your pajamas on" is a natural thing to say. Then to get irritated that it wasn't done when you wanted it done, also natural. I didn't realize how often we told our kids what to do like that. In my mind we were "asking" that these things get done. But in reality, it was something that HAD to be done OR ELSE. Man - I'd be defiant too, haha. This racing that we do now has really changed so many of our interactions. No more crossed arms and refusing to do what I ask. Because I don't ask anymore. The opportunity for defiance is gone.There's a few more tips in the book provides that I used and found invaluable. Overall, the parts that helped me were about 10 pages in the whole book, but those 10 pages have been an enormous help. Would recommend and would buy again. I took one star away for 90% of the book being something to skim over.

If you're looking to understand WHAT you're 6 year old (or any age, for that matter, as there's 1 for each age) these series are perfect. They are small and a quick read for busy Moms and broken into chapters that summarize different parts about them. I really love how the author is not cut and dry- this is how kids should be- like some of the other "Mom for Dummies" books. She is open to every child being different but highlights characteristics that many kids have and what's probably going on in their mind, at the time.Has this book made me a better Mom.... hmmm, not sure but I feel like I have a better understanding of my child, which I guess makes me much more patient. :-)

I used this series of books when i raised my children in the 90's. They were extremely informative and explained what my child was growing through. The books helped me relate to my children as a child, not as a little adult. Now my children are parents and I give them a book from this series every year as they raise their children. I don't know what i would have done without these 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.