PUBLIC HEALTH, NURSING AND MEDICAL SOCIAL WORK
TO THE busy practitioner working with six to 12-year olds and their parents, the new booklet YOUR CHILD FROM SIX TO TWELVE, put out by the Federal Children's Bureau, will be a welcome aid. To those who have searched for materials about these children, it is evident that far too little has been written about them and particularly about their emotional and social growth and development at this period. Yet six to 12-year-old youngsters account for more than a third of all the nation's 45 million children. While this new booklet of the Children's Bureau was prepared primarily for parents, YOUR CHILD FROM SIX TO TWELVE has much to commend it to physicians, nurses, and other professional people working with children. The book attempts successfully to appraise the six to 12-year old in his own home—exactly the subject with which physicians, nurses, and other professional people are so often confronted. And certainly few physicians have the time to answer the many questions that parents ask. Katharine F. Lenroot, Chief of the Children's Bureau, has summarized the purpose and scope of the book very well when she has said:"The booklet offers no magic formula to parents on the care of their children. But it does help us see why children between six and 12 behave the way they do. Why they want to do some things and not others. What their physical and mental limitations are. How their abilities can best be developed as they grow older. Above all, the booklet shows how children at this age need and respond to real understanding and respect." This booklet, like others prepared by the Children's Bureau for parents, is written in a quite informal style and has many common sense suggestions about dealing with children of these ages. Some of the things discussed are: What six to 12-year olds are like, what successful parenthood involves, how families influence children's social adjustments, what play means in the life of a child, helping children make the most of their mental ability, when home and school get together, fear, worries and frustrations, pursuits and hobbies, developing wholesome sex attitudes, growth in middle childhood, keeping the child healthy, and the sick child.