In many of his lectures to teachers on education, Rudolf Steiner called attention to a significant but often overlooked change in the way children experience themselves and the world that occurs in the middle of childhood, in the ninth or tenth year.
"There comes a time when children show, not in what they say but in their whole behavior, that they are struggling with a question or a number of questions that indicates a crisis in their soul life. It is a very subtle experience for the child that requires an equally subtle response."
In this deep and concise book, Peter Selg illuminates this momentous phenomenon in child development, this "dramatic change" in the child's consciousness. Though it is "hardly noticeable" to the observer, Steiner reveals that children during this time in life experience a sudden inner instability, a loss of the foundation they felt had been naturally supporting and carrying them. It is a crisis that pediatric psychologists and psychiatrists know well, as many fears and weaknesses that rise to the surface later, in adolescence, can be traced back to this subtle event.
Parents and educators need to know what to say and how to act, because their response at this time will be crucial for the child's entire life. Through Steiner's profound wisdom of children's inner essence, adults can learn to give them the experience of being carried by a strong and sure relationship:
"When children cross the Rubicon between the ninth and tenth year without that feeling, something will be lacking in their later life, and they will have to struggle to attain what they should have received naturally at that moment in childhood."
I Am Different from You is a vital book for all parents and teachers to read--well before the crisis in the middle of childhood--to recognize what is necessary to support children during this decisive event in the right way.
Saar, Margot: - Margot M. Saar has a university degree in Applied Linguistics and Translating. She also studied Waldorf Education in Germany and Philosophy of Mind in the UK. She taught in Steiner Schools in Britain for 20 years and is an experienced translator and interpreter in specialty fields (education, medicine, philosophy, anthroposophy, homeopathy, anthroposophic medicine, general science). Margot has translated numerous books for SteinerBooks, including Peter Selg's 7-volume biography of Rudolf Steiner.
Selg, Peter: - Peter Selg studied medicine in Witten-Herdecke, Zurich, and Berlin and, until 2000, worked as the head physician of the juvenile psychiatry department of Herdecke Hospital in Germany. Dr. Selg is director of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy (Arlesheim, Switzerland), professor of medicine at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Germany), and co-leader of the General Anthroposophical Section at the Goetheanum. He is the author of numerous books on Rudolf Steiner, anthroposophy, medical ethics, and the development of culture and consciousness.
