This is a guide for parents to the challenging process of helping their children develop. It sets out all that parents need to know about the way a child develops - physically, mentally and emotionally - from birth, through infancy and childhood, to the crucial period of adolescence. While the main narrative focuses on the grand patterns of development, separate boxed sections deal with key subjects, for example, what to do about bullying or how to help a shy child make friends. This revised edition includes up-to-date growth charts based on the latest surveys of children and young people up to the age of 18. Richard Lansdown is the author of Children in Hospital, Child Development Made Simple, More Than Sympathy: The Psychological Needs of Sick and Handicapped Children and co-editor of Problems of Pre-School Children.