{"id":308815,"date":"2025-11-23T11:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T11:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308815\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T11:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T11:12:08","slug":"is-your-six-year-old-arguing-like-a-teen-welcome-to-wobbly-tooth-puberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308815\/","title":{"rendered":"Is your six-year-old arguing like a teen? Welcome to wobbly-tooth puberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Is At three, Jas Suri was a timid boy who used to get teary-eyed when he had to let go of his mom Mishika\u2019s hand at the school gate. Even at the age of five, he just needed one instruction and he would clean his room, arrange his toys and get ready for classes. Mishika used to secretly thank God for giving her such an obedient son. These days, she prays for a little cooperation. \u201cSomething flipped when he turned six. He just stopped listening to me. Now if I ask him to study or eat or pick up his clothes, he says \u2018later\u2019 or flatly refuses,\u201d says the Juhu mom. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to react. It\u2019s like he is seven going on 17.\u201dMishika isn\u2019t the only mom who is struggling with her child\u2019s sass. While parents are mentally prepared for sleepless nights with babies, toddler tantrums and teenage drama, most are caught unawares by the mini rebellions of middle childhood (six to 10 years). Scientists are now calling this phase \u2018wobbly-tooth puberty\u2019 (a literal translation of the German word Wackelzahnpubert\u00e4t) as it is akin to the real pubertal phase. German magazine Wunderkind says this stage is marked by \u201caggressive behaviour, rebellious activism, and deep sadness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Effective tips to improve your parenting skills <\/p>\n

Rahela Tayebbi, a parent coach and mom-to-two (boys aged six and 10), admits this phase is way tougher than the toddler years. \u201cWhen the boys were little, I could lay certain boundaries. Now, they push back so much. It has become a battle to impose even basic rules,\u201d she says. The Indore resident reveals that these days when she announces that TV time is up and hides the remote above the cupboard, the boys climb a stool and retrieve it. \u201cMy younger one also rejects food made at home and insists I order pizza. When I tell him we order only on weekends, he argues that his friends get pizza whenever they want. There is drama almost daily now,\u201d she adds.While infancy and adolescence are now well-understood, middle childhood has been long neglected and psychologists call it the \u2018forgotten years\u2019. But new research is taking place and experts have found that while adolescent rebellion is driven by hormonal changes, \u2018wobbly-tooth puberty\u2019 is caused by drastic changes in the brain as it lays the foundation for more mature thoughts and feelings. During this phase, their identity is forming (\u201cWho am I compared to others?\u201d) and their logical reasoning and cause-and-effect thinking develop. That\u2019s why this stage is referred to as l\u2019\u00e2ge de raison (the age of reason) in France, notes David Robinson in an article for the BBC. For parents, this means dealing with more attitude, mood swings and sudden outbursts. Mumbai mom Parul Gupta is finding the rudeness too much to handle. Her six-year-old daughter Niya snaps at her often and says, \u201cAap jao, mujhe aapse baat nahi karni (Go away\u2026I don\u2019t want to talk to you).\u201d The homemaker adds, \u201cI can understand my 12-year-old son saying such lines because he is going through puberty and his hormones are all over the place, but it breaks my heart when my baby talks like that.\u201d Gupta says Niya has started comparing herself to her elder brother a lot. So, if he is watching TV and she asks Niya to brush, change and sleep, she puts up a big fight (\u201cWhy should I go to bed now?\u201d)Little people, big feelingsResearchers have found that from the age of four, children gradually develop a \u2018theory of mind\u2019 which basically means they are able to understand that other people have feelings and perspectives that may be different from their own. This is also linked to development of a conscience as it allows them to reason about moral dilemmas and experience guilt. Neena Bhatt (name changed) realised this recently when her seven-year-old spilled a secret that had been troubling her. Renee admitted that when the teacher asked what they had done over the weekend, she spoke about a thrilling family treasure hunt. Turns out, Riya had heard about this treasure hunt in an audio story and decided to tell her teacher that she and her sister had played this with their parents instead of saying they just spent the weekend watching TV and reading books. \u201cRiya also admitted that one day when a child told the teacher about a death in the family, she too said that her grandfather had passed away recently to gain their sympathy. Her grandpa had actually passed away years before her birth so, she has never really felt bad about the loss,\u201d says Bhatt.The graphic designer realised her daughter was simply adding masala to her stories or telling white lies to gain attention. \u201cWhile exaggerating is not exactly a wrong thing or hurting anyone, I was confused about how to react. If I dismiss it as \u2018no big deal\u2019, she may lie about bigger things tomorrow,\u201d says Bhatt, adding that she told Renee to stick to the facts then. \u201cI realised that she had developed a conscience and that it was now pricking her about lying which is a good thing.\u201dConnect, correct and controlParenting experts believe that one of the reasons kids struggle in middle childhood is because parents start thinking they are all grown up and don\u2019t need as much attention as they did when they were babies. \u201cParents tend to give up a little when the kid crosses six years. The child starts looking bigger and we think that they have grown up, now I can do whatever I want to do. It’s a very normal feeling,\u201d says parenting researcher Harpreet Grover. He points out that parents need to remember that while kids aged six and above are big enough to understand the world around them, they are not big enough to make their own choices. \u201cIt is like the milk teeth have fallen, but the new teeth will take a lot of time to come, so the kids need us as much as before,\u201d says Grover.He adds that the \u201cagenda of the world\u201d calls out to the child a lot as they transition from babies to pre-teens and they are lured by everything around them, so the parents need to be super vigilant. \u201cThis is the age when kids want to use the mobile phone and play video games. It is the parent\u2019s role to not allow mobile as a companion and stop the kids from playing video games like Roblox which have so much sexual violence,\u201d says Grover, who goes by the name \u2018The Curious Parent\u2019 online. He says the onus is on parents to keep the child healthy physically by letting them play and ensuring right nutrition, and mentally by ensuring they’re involved with life.Tayebbi advises parents to not take the child\u2019s attitude personally. \u201cI remember when we attended the school book fair and my son wanted to buy a book, I said \u2018no\u2019 because the book was available for a lesser price on Amazon. He got very angry and said: \u2018Aapko to har cheez mein problem hai (You have a problem with everything)\u2019,\u201d she recalls. \u201cOver time, I realised that I should not feel bad because he is just growing up and becoming more expressive. We just need to be prepared to give more logic to convince our kids now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At three, Jas Suri was a timid boy who used to get teary-eyed when he had to let…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97,159761,159760,159759,159758,159757],"class_list":{"0":"post-308815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-renee","10":"tag-riya","11":"tag-roblox","12":"tag-wackelzahnpubertt","13":"tag-wunderkind"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}