The French have a name for the uniquely hellish years between elementary and high : l'âge ingrat, or "the ugly age." Characterized by a perfect storm of developmental changes--physical, psychological, and social--the middle years are a time of great distress for children and parents alike, marked by hurt, isolation, exclusion, competition, anxiety, and often outright cruelty. Some of this is inevitable; there are intrinsic challenges to early adolescence. But these years are harder than they need to be, and Judith Warner believes that adults are complicit.

With deep insight and compassion, Warner walks us through a new understanding of the role that middle plays in all our lives. She argues that today's helicopter parents are overly concerned with status and achievement--in some ways a residual effect of their own middle experiences--and that this worsens the self-consciousness, self-absorption, and social "sorting" so typical of early adolescence.

Tracing a century of research on middle childhood and bringing together the voices of social scientists, psychologists, educators, and parents, Warner's book shows how adults can be moral role models for children, making them more empathetic, caring, and resilient. She encourages us to start treating middle ers as the complex people they are, holding them to high standards of kindness, and helping them see one another as more than "jocks and mean girls, nerds and sluts."