An invaluable guide to understanding how your child grows and learns Your child's second through sixth years are a time of challenge and excitement--and often, frustration--for parents, a time during which your child asserts his or her individuality with growing curiosity and perception, initiative and spontaneity. In these five years you will see your child learning, testing, exploring, playing, creating, and imagining in new and surprisingly sophisticated ways. The crises, too, are new--they may range from illnesses, nightmares, and bed-wetting to speech, learning, and discipline problems. The Early Childhood Years can help you prepare for and avoid many of the problems inherent in this crucial period of development. By the end of the sixth year, your child will be an accomplished speaker, an enthusiastic playmate, and master of his or her own body, ready to take on the world of people and things in school and beyond. This companion volume to The First Twelve Months of Life and The Second Twelve Months of Life includes a minicourse in early child development, and special parenting topics such as working mothers/day care, adoption, gifted children, stepparenthood, safety, and more.