The Unique Anxieties of the Nine-year Change

by Adam Blanning, MD

Do you remember being nine? Many people have vivid memories about particular events or experiences at that age. Some people reflect back and realize how their connection with the world changed, how they began to notice new things or ask different questions. If you dig a little deeper, a whole set of people report that this was the age when they actually got a first glimmer of their later life’s work.

What is most consistent, however, is that many people remember feeling anxious. This age stands as a developmental eye of the needle, a passageway, through which we become aware of ourselves as true individuals, and which brings associated insecurities (1, 2, 3, 4).

It is vitally important to know about this threshold time of nine-years, because it is too often misinterpreted. Tremendous numbers of children are being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, especially since the start of the COVID time (5). When we enlarge our view, we can also understand this age of nine-years as a time of essential developmental growth. To do that, we need to know the context. There are good ways to help a child move successfully through this transition.

Of course, every child experiences aspects of individuality long before age nine. It’s good to review some of those experiences, because it is not uncommon for there to be shades of anxiety during these other transition times, too.

Child development and individualization steps

• The first big change comes when we are born, as the warmth, nutrition and protection we have been bathed in for nine months abruptly falls away. Suddenly, we must breathe on our own, learn to nurse, see, digest, and maintain our warmth. That is a huge shift (we don’t usually think about newborns having an anxiety disorder because we recognize right away, they are tremendously sensitive beings and need lots of protection, so our care instinctively goes towards soothing and helping them orient to new rhythms of eating, sleeping, and breathing).
  
  
• A more recognizable emotional change comes at two- to three-years of age, when children start to realize that they can be distinct from their surroundings and that there is an actual border which marks what-is-me and what-is-not-me. This is a time when children practice saying “no” to all kinds of things, not so much because they hold deep moral objections as because they need to practice saying “no,” need to practice being distinct, need to practice sympathy and antipathy. The border between inside and outside becomes clearer. It’s still not yet firmly established, and it shifts all the time, so that the thing a child emphatically says “no” to one moment may be fine ten minutes later. Those refusals are a practice in process, not principle. It is no coincidence that this is also the time when many children are learning to potty-train, a related physiologic practice of feeling when something is still inside of me or outside of me, a body-oriented boundary learning.
  
  
• At about five years, children’s play changes as part of new social awareness. Children start communicating more. Instead of just freely playing together—whether running outside, building a “house”, or creating a game—now there comes an element of planning and discussing. There are more dynamics of communication and of personality. Perception of the other grows, and children start to begin to have insights about many variations of life, realizing that there are children with different family structures, such as three sisters, or no sisters, one parent, two parents, three parents, or no dogs.
  
  
• At 6 ½ to 7 years, children begin to lose their baby teeth and their limbs and bodies lengthen, but the most striking change is the way that their thinking shifts. Children begin to have abstract thoughts, so that letters and numbers, as symbols, have newer, deeper meaning. Thinking is no longer so literal, so connected to the physical body. Thinking becomes “body-free” in that a child can now begin to think about a thing in more flexible ways (such as doing addition problems with mental math rather than always needing to count it out on their fingers). This is also evidenced by the way jokes and puns become more accessible. Children at this age can hear the difference in a knock-knock joke between “aren’t you glad?” and “orange you glad?”, or a pun like “lettuce be friends.” A child also becomes more able to think about doing something without having to physically act it out. As a result, they also become less imitative, more able to observe without mirroring their environment.
  

These changes mark predictable steps of developmental progression. Through these we become, stepwise, more aware of the outside world and able to engage with it in new ways. Then comes age nine. The quality of that change is different, because children enter a whole new field of self-consciousness.

The nine-year change and recommendations for support

With the nine-year change, we each find connection to our innermost core, to the kernel of our spiritual being, which is, in truth, completely different and distinct from anyone else. In Anthroposophic medicine and Waldorf education this innermost aspect is known as our “I”—because we can really only say “I” about ourselves. Age nine marks an awakening of that innermost spiritual core, an awakening that brings glimpses of how life intentions may play out in the future, and which lays the foundation for true moral perception.

The first experience for many children at this age, however, is fear. Nine-year-olds frequently express deep worries, and they circle around particular themes: death, loss of a parent, illness, robbers, accidents, and natural disasters (like hurricanes, earthquakes, or tsunamis). These all are expressions of the newly experienced vulnerability that comes from feeling separate, from feeling distinct and individual. When I start to realize that I am my own person, that also means I can be separated from those I love. The protective “bubble” of unconscious protection that has so far sheltered a younger child becomes more permeable.

Recommendations for parents, educators and other caregivers

• First, where previously it was possible to reassure and largely shield a child from any particular worry (“Don’t worry”), many parents find that the realities of this new nine-year experience can’t simply be whispered away. If a child says, “I am worried that you (the parent) will die,” you can’t honestly say that “that will never happen.” You might have been able to say that to a four-year-old, but it doesn’t work well with a nine-year-old. Hearing about the death of a relative, seeing a show about murderers, or learning about serious illness or injury are often proverbial “cats” that can’t be easily stuffed back into their bags. Parenting must change a bit to become more companioning, sharing more about response and orientation. Some possible examples of answers to worries are given below. Feel encouraged to find your own phrases—it’s important that what you say feels authentic—though these might give you a starting place:
  
  
  • Worry: “I am afraid you will die.” Answer: “I certainly don’t want that to happen, and I don’t think that is something we need to worry about now. But if I did die, I would still love you and be around you all the time and tell good things to your heart.”
    
    
  • “I’m worried about tornadoes” A: “If there was a tornado, then we would go down into the basement or into a room without windows and wait quietly until it was all over.”
    
    
  • “What if someone smashes into our car?” A: “If we were hurt, we would go to the hospital and the doctors would take care of us, and if we needed to, we would get the car repaired, too.”
    
    
• Second piece of advice—don’t take things too personally! It is not uncommon for children at this age to ask who their real parents are. This can be unexpectedly wounding, especially for adoptive parents of a child, though it is a question also voiced by children who are living with their biological parents. Just as one shouldn’t take too personally a two-year-old’s yelling “No!”, it is similarly good to remember that these kinds of questions relate to experiencing the world in a new way. Feeling oneself as an individual often brings loneliness. We wonder if we are really in the right place (which often happens for adults who are going through a biographical change, too).
  
  
• Don’t Over-intellectualize: Though we do need to meet a nine-year-old’s worries with honesty, it does not mean that they are ready to now hear about all the challenges of adulthood. Awareness of those more complex realities will come naturally around age twenty-one (the time that our “I” takes a next big step towards greater self-definition and self-awareness). Sometimes nine-year-old children are taken to a therapist who wants to treat them with techniques that are only appropriate for an adult, with lots of self-analysis. Those techniques are usually developmentally inappropriate for nine-year-olds and can sometimes make things worse. Instead, focus on helping the child answer the questions he or she already has (without adding a bunch more). Expecting heightened self-analysis to help a child who is already struggling with sudden new self-awareness often misses the mark.
  
  
• A small caution: because the child is trying to find a new way of being in the world, it is nice (as much as is possible) to not also make major life changes at this age. This is a period when family separations, divorce, unexpected loss or trauma can have a deep impact. Of course, many changes unfold in ways that are beyond our control, but if you have been thinking about randomly taking a year off and traveling the globe, with frequent location changes, it would probably be better to wait and not do it with your nine-year-old. Let foundations for a new sense of self be built first, which will be aided by familiar surroundings and predictable rhythms.
  
  
• Celebrate new strengths and capacities! Look to see the sparks of true originality that begin to shine with this step of individualization. In what ways is your child now ready to be active in the world, interested in the world, kind in the world?
  
  
• When should you think about seeking help? If you sense that your child is getting stuck in this phase, showing changes like persistent sleep disturbances, changes in eating patterns, phobias or an inability to carry out usual activities (attending school, playing with friends) it’s a good idea to seek support. A starting place can be your family doctor or a counselor who is used to working with children.
  

Anthroposophic therapeutic supports

• Some of the best anthroposophic therapeutic supports at this age work to bring more courage and confidence. There are a variety of anthroposophic medicines that act in a grounding, calming, fortifying way. Most children will not need them, but if someone is really stuck in worry, unable to separate from the parent, or has badly disturbed sleep, there are good treatments available, including preparations of Ferrum sidereum, Stibium, Aurum and Bryophyllum.
  
  
• This is also an age when certain types of illness make their appearance. Obsessive-compulsive behaviors can appear, which can be partly viewed as an unconscious adaptation for controlling vulnerability to the outside world. With OCD, the nervous system gets stuck in looping worries (obsessions), sometimes with a need to repeatedly physically orient in the environment (handwashing, touching things, ordering the room). Children also can develop tics at this age, a different but related expression of a looping in the nervous system, but now related to movement. Age nine is also a time when children often get warts on their fingers and feet—an immunologic challenge that comes as children are working to determine “What is part of me?” Most children’s warts will naturally disappear over the next several years as their immune systems mature. Our immune system is an essential physiologic tool of our “I”. There are similarly good anthroposophic treatments for each of these imbalances.
  

Fruits that come with this biographical shift

What are some of the fruits that come with this biographical shift? The first: a newly deepened sense of self. The second: reciprocal capacity to recognize another person as an “I”, as a completely individual, unique being. The nine-year change is the foundation for developing a true moral sensing of the other. That’s an important revelation! So, we don’t want to suppress or shame this burgeoning sense of individuality, and we shouldn’t rush to over-diagnose it or over-medicate.

The world needs—both now and in future—to have as many people as possible who have learned to be comfortable and capable in their individuality, so that they can also recognize and honor the uniqueness of the other (without being threatened by it).

We don’t need to fear the nine-year change, we should celebrate it, for it stands as a core experience in our moral and spiritual development as human beings.

Bibliography

1. Selg P. I Am Different from You: How Children Experience Themselves and the World in the Middle of Childhood. Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks; 2011.
   
2. Schoorel E. The First Seven Years: Physiology of Childhood. Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2019.
   
3. Föller-Mancini A, Berger B: Der Rubikon als Entwicklungsphänomen in der mittleren Kindheit. In: Jost Schieren (Hrsg.) Waldorfpädagogik. Enzyklopädie Erziehungswissenschaft online (EEO), 2018. Abstract available at https://www.beltz.de/fachmedien/erziehungswissenschaft/enzyklopaedie_erziehungswissenschaft_online_eeo/artikel/38687-der-rubikon-als-entwicklungsphaenomen-in-der-mittleren-kindheit.html.
   
4. Berger B, Martin D, Büssing A, Föller-Mancini A: Rubikon als Krise in der Mitte der Kindheit ? „Gesund Aufwachsen im Revier“. 5. Ruhrgebietskongress zur Kinder- und Jugendgesundheit 9.3.2019. Presentation available at https://www.gesund-aufwachsen.ruhr/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/4.-Berger_Rubikon-ForumGA_2019_Freigabe.pdf.
   
5. Meherali S, Punjani N, Louie-Poon S, Rahim KA, Das JK, Salam RA, Lassi ZS. Mental Health of Children and Adolescents Amidst COVID-19 and Past Pandemics: A Rapid Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2021;18(7):3432. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073432.