I Am Different from You: How Children Experience Themselves and the World in the Middle of Childhood

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.

About the Author
Selg, Peter: -

Born 1963, Stuttgart.

1986-1993 Study of human medicine at the University of Witten/Herdecke, in Berlin and Zurich. Doctoral thesis: Attempt to systematize Rudolf Steiner's human physiological ideas. An analysis of the entire lecture and written work (Witten/Herdecke 1995).

1993-2000 Further training as a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. Senior physician in the psychiatric department for adolescents and young adults at the Herdecke Community Hospital.

2000-2002 Research associate at the Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology (Freiburg).

2002-2006 Head physician at the Ita Wegman Clinic Arlesheim (adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy); since 2006 establishment and management of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Anthroposophical Research

Since 2007 professorship for medical anthropology and ethics at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Alfter near Bonn); teaching in the Studium fundamentale and in the accompanying studies in anthroposophic medicine at the University/Witten-Herdecke

Since 2020, co-leader of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Section of the School of Spiritual Science (Goetheanum)

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.