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Review by Amy Lynch
Charts of weight and height, the benchmarks of mental development -- these are parenting book basics. Laura Nathanson includes them in her work, too, but not as baseline measures. The indicators this pediatrician of 20 years urges parents to notice are more subtle than height and weight percentiles. A parent's biggest job, Nathanson tells us, is to witness and affirm development of a different type -- in short, the growth of a Kid's soul. Don't get the wrong idea; this book is no religious tract. Rather, it is an enlightened and enjoyable rove through the years between four and 12, when Kids develop moral character and begin to wrestle with the BIG questions.
Taking up where most parenting books leave off, Nathanson shows us how Kids sort out complicated concepts of justice and truth during these years, and how they develop self awareness. This is, of course, the deep structure stuff of psychology, but Nathanson's text (enlightened by, but not burdened with psychoanalysis) makes childhood development sound like an adventure. She reminds us that it's fun.
The Guide to Kids is particularly valuable because the years between babyhood and adolescence don't get much press. Books about toddlers abound, but from there the literature more or less skips ahead to tattoos and curfews. Nathanson fills the gap by guiding us through the years in between, when children go from tying their shoes to shooting hoops, from training wheels to training bras. These changes come quickly, she reminds us, and Kids have a habit of entering new stages without announcing that they're about to do so. But parents who anticipate the changes can feel confident, expert, and in charge.
After all, Nathanson argues, change is normal, just like childhood. Yet she worries that as a society we're in danger of losing a sense of what it is to have a normal, healthy childhood. That's one reason Nathanson calls her patients Kids with a capital K, not children. " 'Kid' has an aura of liveliness and spunk," she writes. "Children feel like a different species to adults. Kids are like we used to be when we were younger."
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