Crucial Years

A paradigm-shifting guide for parents and caregivers, this book offers insights, strategies and understanding to navigate middle childhood (ages 6-12). Dr. Sheryl Ziegler, a seasoned clinical psychologist and mother, highlights ways to foster resilience, encourage open communication and build lasting connections during this crucial period. A pivotal sea change is 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 mother and clinical psychologist, Dr. Sheryl Ziegler knows first-hand how challenging these years can be - yet she also recognizes that this is a tender age and pivotal opportunity to connect with your child before adolescence. 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 the first signs of puberty and navigate the changes to come. - Candid and actionable guidance for getting your kids to talk about anxiety, depression and their complicated feelings. - Insight into the changing world of gender and sexual identity, and how to guide your child through this complicated new landscape. - A thoughtful and sensitive discussion of how race intersects with puberty and mental health, and how all parents can approach this mindfully and inclusively. - A clear explanation of the invisible threads linking mood swings, self-image and social media exposure. - Road-tested, real-world guidance to handle bullies, mean girls and other friendship and social challenges. The Crucial Years gives you everything you need to guide your child through the hazards and thrills of puberty and help them emerge as well-rounded, confident young adults.

Dr Sheryl Gonzalez Ziegler, Psy.D. is an acclaimed expert on children's mental health with a deep understanding of the needs of today's tweens, teens and their families. A first-generation Latina with Puerto Rican and Cuban roots, Dr Ziegler was born in Harlem and raised in Washington Heights. She completed her advanced doctoral training at The Astor Home for Children in Rhinebeck, NY, where was she was supported by The Bill and Melinda Gates Scholarship Foundation, and began her professional career treating the highest acuity patients in subsequent youth residential treatment centres. Her group private practice, The Child & Family Therapy Center at Lowry, was established in 2006 in Denver. Dr Ziegler appears weekly on Denver's NBC-TV's 9News as their on-staff mental health and parenting expert and has been featured in such national media as The Today Show, CNN Headline News and The Katie Couric Show. She has contributed to or been interviewed by The New York Times, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Time, Parents, Elle, Better Homes and Gardens and more. Dr Ziegler has been named a Luminary in the field of Psychotherapy and was recognized as such at the 2022 Evolution of Psychotherapy conference in Orlando. 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. She is a board member of Detach, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping teens achieve digital balance and advises major national corporations on tween and teen mental health initiatives. She is also the mother of a tween and two teens.