Your Four-Year-Old: Wild and Wonderful

Incredibly helpful read even with the limitations of the more dated material. This book provides general milestones and expectations for average behavior within the child's age range. As an example taken directly from the text, the chapter on planning The Four Year Old's Birthday party provides a highly accurate outline of realistic activities, expected attention span, and stamina for this age to be able to participate in. The author offers tips on effective communication with this age group to include the four year old's grasp of humor and appreciation of play with silly words (this one has been incredibly, incredibly accurate in my circumstance!). While not a play-by-play parenting guide by any means, this book has provided an excellent starting point for me to apply some give and take as I interact with my significant other's four year old. The book has given me a great baseline to help have more meaningful interactions rather than pure, uninformed trial and error. I've already ordered a copy of what I call "The Five Year Old Book" and I am excited to finish it in advance of the child's fifth year.

Super helpful, doesn't tell you exactly what to you. Just gives you answers to what stage the child is in so you can make your own conclusions on how you will best parent your kiddo through the stages of growth and emotional development they are currently in.

Yes, the book is definitely from another era. It's copyright 1976, and it has not been updated since then. If you can't look past that, then this isn't the book for you. However for folks who read a lot of parenting books, this is a pretty good addition to the pile. It does a nice job of catching the 4-year-old vibe and of giving a fairly accurate sense of what 4-year-old kids are like. It's not a super exciting read, but there were a few ah-ha moments in it. I'll continue to buy the other books in the series. It would also be a great book for parents who are truly afraid that something abnormal might be going on with their kids. If you're actually concerned that something might be going awry, rather than just generally looking for ways to be a better parent, then you should definitely buy this book. When you're done with the book, you'll either be reassured or you'll know that you should be talking to someone professional for further advice and input. If you're neither an avid reader nor a worried parent, try something else: 1) Proactive Parenting: Guiding your Child from Two to Six, from Tufts 2) The Successful Child, by William and Martha Sears 3)The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children, by Wendy Mogel (I'm not Jewish. It's still a good book. She's a psychologist.)

This book, and the others in this series, is wonderful! If you are looking for simple, child development books - look no further. They are all written in clear, concise language and unlike many parenting books, do not cause parental guilt about what we should or shouldn't do. I have a teen and a 4 year old and this book helped me to remember that my 4 year old is simply not capable of behaving like my older child, nor should I expect him to. It reminded me that his extreme ups and downs are perfectly normal and that I should not simply tolerate those shifts, but enjoy them fully. I have most of the books in this series (used them for my first child) and recommend them to parents all the time!

I used this set of developmental books as a guideline for my own children. Now, I share them with new parents. Although, the language can sound a bit dated the information is good. No judgments or opinions just the facts (your kid does this when). Suggestions kept to a bare minimum, really only list of things to provide access to for promoting development in your child. Just a really wonderful easy to read/follow series that gives you a heads up on what is next in your child's development.

This is our 4th book and I will continue to buy the next as our daughter continues to grow. (we have read all the others Your Baby - Your 4 year old). They are a wonderful book filled with ways to help understand what is going on with your child at a given age. I find I parent better when I have a better understand as to why my child is behaving in a certain way. Knowledge is power. And these books give that to you and then some.

There are parts about the books in this series that are fantastic, and there are parts that really should be updated. I primarily like this series because it gives parents an idea of what to expect from each age, and they are very in depth and seem to be focused on the child's needs and abilities. Understanding what to expect from each age (or at least a generalized idea of what to expect) really helps me to meet my daughters needs AND it helps me to avoid stress and worry. I imagine it could also encourage me to seek intervention if what she was experiencing was not somewhat normal. The part of these books that is a little outdated are the language and the techniques. Some of the techniques are very helpful, but some of them aren't. However, I would still recommend buying these books if you can look over the parts that are not helpful to you, because the parts that explain childhood development really can't be matched in many other resources, especially none as comprehensive as this series.

I don't generally buy books because I love reading and buying could get expensive quickly. I buy these books whenever one of my kids is driving me nuts. Yes. I've bought one for most years. In this one, I was comforted that my extremely loud 4 may not be loud and yell-y forever. The body type explanations were also super useful.

These books were written so long ago, so you have to take some of it with a pinch of salt. But its the best representation of child's abilities for each age

This book really helped me to enjoy my visit to my four year old granddaughter ! It helped to remind me how brilliant a developing human being is and particularly this is a stage of tremendous play acting ( I was getting a little bit hurt at always being put in the naughty chair !). There was a strange bit where she described three personality types which she claimed corresponded to body type which I found hard to really believe although the personality types were useful for reflection. Also some of her answers to questions seemed to go against the freedom she had earlier advocated but overall I would highly recommend this book

Although some parts of the book are certainly dated, having been researched and written in the 1970's, it still gives a generalized understanding of 4 year olds. It's an easy and quick read that offers insight into my child's development.