Preschool Age

“There are no seven wonders in the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.” – Walt Streightiff

Developmental Milestones for Preschool Age Chidlren

Physical Development

The physical growth amount and rate varies for children ages 3-5. All children develop a less-toddler-like trunk (less top-heavy) and have an average gain of 5 – 6 lbs and 2 – 3 inches per year. The brain grows and coordination improves with each year. Below is a chart of their gross motor development.

Parents can do things to help their child progress:

• Provide for physical activity throughout entire day
  • Children learn through activity-moving, exploring, and acting on objects
• Activities should provide opportunities for children to develop competence and confidence
• Outdoors is an ideal environment for promoting gross-motor development, but supervision and planning is necessary

The fine motor skills of a child (hands and finger movement and coordination), progress maybe slow. Below are some of the milestones for these skills by age.

Parents can fostered fine motor skill progress by:

• Giving them ample opportunities to practice – give them markers!
• Giving them appropriate tools – give them scissors & glue!
• Adult support – model how to use the tools
• Too much focus on performance in this area may create feelings of inadequacy and stress

Cognitive Development

Piaget explored a child’s characteristics of thought at this age. He explained the following:

• Egocentrism: take into account only one’s own point of view
  • I can’t see you, you can’t see me
• Centration: attention on one element of a situation and ignoring of all others.
  • House cat is a cat, but lion isn’t
• Concreteness: the tendency of young children to focus on the tangible, observable, aspects of objects.

Children think very differently than adults. The Theory of Mind is the understanding that your thoughts, beliefs, knowledge and desires are private and different from those of another person. This knowledge:

• Develops gradually between 3 and 4 1/2 years of age
• Enhanced by siblings and imaginary play
• Related to development of empathy, perspective taking, morality, etc
• Underdeveloped in autistic children

Children are “natural-born explorers” who need to “explore” their environments.  The role of parents is to facilitate their curiosity and help guide their “discoveries”. As parents, we should strive to foster creativity by:

• Variety of real life materials to explore
• Allow for creative and pretend play
• Allow sufficient time for creative play
• Children need time to reflect upon ideas, set-up time and build projects

Language Development

Brooks (2013) explains that “children’s verbal skills in the preschool years are important because they predict children’s verbal IQ and reading skills in the third grade better than vocabulary growth. Adults’ conversations with children not only develop skills, but also convey information about how others think and feel, values about gender and racial matters, and the child’s behavior in the past so the child has a sense of autobiographical memory” (p. 244).

3-year-olds shows a steady increase in vocabulary ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 words tends to over generalize meaning and make up words to fit needs people outside of family should be able to understand 75 percent of what they are saying not uncommon for kids to stutter

4-year-olds expands vocabulary from 4,000 to 6,000 words shows more attention to abstract uses

5-year-olds employs a vocabulary of 5,000 to 8,000 words frequently plays on words pronounces words with little difficulty (except for particular sounds, such as I and th)

Emotional Development

Self-Regulation

At this age, children learn social rules, moral actions, and behaviors from parents, siblings, and friends. Brooks (2013) stated that even early in the preschool years children are “aware of the difference between rules that concern kindness and basic consideration of others and rules that have to do with social convention” (p. 249). They also have a clear idea of right and wrong, but preschoolers evaluate actions by outcomes (p. 250).

• Situational compliance: Child obeys with frequent prompts from present parent
• Committed compliance:  Child obeys willingly with parent in the room
• Internalization (4+): Child obeys when parent leaves the room
• For Parents to do:
  • Model Self-Regulation
  • Practice gradually (e.g., church)
  • Be prepared and realistic (e.g., church, restaurant)
  • Make it fun! (Walker, lecture 10)

Temper Tantrums

Tantrums are often perpetuated by parents who either force a contest of wills or give in completely to desires of child. There are a few things to remember in this area:

• Make expectations clear, simple, and consistent
• Assist cooperation by gentle verbal and physical (leading) requests
  • Ask before telling
• Model expected behavior
• Offer choices
  • Remember that what your child wants in the moment is the world to them. Recognize that and tell them I know you must want this, but you can’t have it now. That must be really hard not to have it now.
• Distract
• Be Proactive!
• Don’t give in!!!
  • But say yes as much as you can
• Pick your battles
• Respect your kids

“Optimal development during these years is more likely to occur if children have opportunities to establish positive and caring relationships with adults and other children” -Bredekamp and Copple (1997).

Social Development

3-year-olds Look on from the sidelines or engage in parallel play until becoming more familiar with the other children

4-year-olds Still engages in associative play but begins true give-and-take, cooperative play

5-year-olds Enjoys dramatic play with other children

Benefits of Imaginative Play

Preschoolers who spend more time in dramatic play:

• are more advanced in intellectual development
• are able to concentrate for long periods of time
• are more socially competent

Make-believe play:

• Strengthens memory
• logical reasoning
• language and literacy
• Imagination and creativity
• Ability to reflect on one’s own thinking & the perspectives of others (theory of mind)

**Parents may use imaginative play to their advantage—to build positive routines and discipline.

Parents can help social development by:

• Encourage independence where possible
  • Let them go to friends house or group activities
• Teach pro-social skills like you would academic skills
  • How to take turns/share
  • How to enter a peer group situation
  • How to play with friends
• Respect children’s social relations
  • Encourage friends over – make your home a gathering place

Moral and Spiritual Development

Moral Development

It is important to remember that up to age 4, they are still in a pre-moral stage. They have little understanding of rules or consequences. They do what is right to be obedient. They do what is right to avoid punishment. They do what is right for gain or reward. Parents can do a few things to help moral development:

• Practice explaining the “why”
• Set clear and simple rules
• Be consistent
• Model good behavior
  • Good behavior = good consequences
  • With negative behavior, remember this too shall pass.
• Provide outlets for anger
• Encourage sharing and helping
  • Give young children a role/job while they still want to help!
  • Being kind, prosocial behavior toward them means more likely that they will have those attributes when they grow

Spiritual Development

At this age, children will be very literal and eager to learn. For parents it is important to do the following to help foster their child’s spiritual development:

• Establish patterns
• Involve children
• Answer their questions
• Read and tell stories, let them participate by repeating what you read
• Baby steps, remember their level of thought and learning
• Don’t fight about spirituality

 Other Issues Unique to Early Childhood

Potty Training

Potty training can be one of the most challenging issues in parenting. Parenting.com has a great article about potty training here.  Dr. Walker emphasized that it is important to ask whether or not your child is ready. Below are a few questions to ponder to gauge whether or not your child is ready:

• Is child interested in toilet or underwear?
• Can child understand basic instructions and follow?
• Can child stay dry for two hours or longer during day?
• Does child complain about messy diapers?
• Can child pull pants up and down?
  • Usually no snaps, buttons etc.
• Can child get onto potty?

*See below for more potty training tips.

Safety

At this age, children are mobile and learning how to do things on their own. It is important to keep them safe as they do so. We should discuss the why of certain practices with them so they understand and know we have their best interest at heart.

Bike helmets are important when they are learning to ride a bike.

Car seats are also crucial when traveling in a car until a child is 40 lbs. It should be rear facing in the back seat. Booster seats can be used until the child is 8 years old or at least 57 inches tall. Safety advocates recommend 12 and younger to be in the back seat and 80 lbs.

There are also safety precautions to take when it comes to being inside and outside:

Inside

• Remove breakable/fragile objects
• Remove furniture with sharp corners
• Safety devices in outlets
• Baby locks on cabinets
• Gates on stairways
• No hanging pictures above child’s bed
• All cleaning supplies locked up!

Outside

• Fences and gates secure – especially on pools or hot-tubs
• Outdoor equipment in good repair
• Children should be supervised AT ALL TIMES!

Picky Eating

Food & Parenting – Raising Healthy Eaters is an article about ideas of how to approach healthy eating. The author suggests things to consider like portion size, trying new foods, and others. Dr. Walker also offers the following suggestions when it comes to picky eaters.

Respect when your child is hungry or not Serve meals and snacks routinely Avoid juice/milk between meals Be patient with new foods Talk about the color or shape of food Serve new foods with favorites Make it fun! Add a dip to fruit or veggies Cut food into fun shapes Let your child choose healthy foods or plan a meal Let them pick food at the store Let them help prepare – they will be more likely to eat it Set a good example Be creative

Sneak healthy food into spaghetti sauce or soups or smoothies Minimize distractions Turn off TV, no devices at the table Even for mom and dad Don’t offer dessert as a reward Ok, to say if you don’t eat your dinner you don’t get dessert Don’t say three more bites then you can have dessert Choose a dessert night or make fruit a dessert Don’t cook to order Encourage the child to stay at the table even if they aren’t eating Make a menu for the week and ask their opinion what they want

Preschool or not?

Kids don’t start kindergarten until six years old. However, parents can decide if they want their child to attend preschool when they are younger. This is a big decision and there are many options. Here are a few things to consider.

Should my child attend? Can they make friends? Can they separate easily from mom or dad? Can they appropriately deal with their emotions for that age?

What to look for in a quality program? Quality of environment Student – teacher ratio How long they have worked there Focus on whole child – social, emotional, cognitive, and physical

Concerns or Issues with Preschool Age Children

1. One of the concerns or issues with children ages 3-5 is language. I really want my child to be able to communicate their needs and emotions. I have always had a hard time communicating what I am feeling, and I think that might be in part because I was the youngest of five girls so my sisters would talk for me. I want to start encouraging my children to talk about their own feelings from an early age and to help them communicate.
2. I have this fear of having a child that is entitled and thinks they should get everything they want. I have extended family and friends that are struggling now as young adults because their parents gave them everything they asked for. Now, they still live at home and are stuck doing the same things they did in high school. I think this outcome is a result of how their parents raised them when they were young. It’s important to start teaching your children early about self-regulation and delayed gratification.
3. Potty Training is something that I think will be one of the hardest hurdles and most frustrating aspects of parenting preschool age children. I would really like to get a handle on this before so I know how best to prepare and how to approach the issue.

Addressing Concerns or Issues

1. There are several things that parents can do to help a child develop their language and communication skills. Below are a few suggestions from Dr. Walker’s lecture on Early Childhood and Brooks’ “The Process of Parenting”:

• Because they are literal thinkers – be clear with word choice!
• READ!
  • Ask open-ended questions
  • Provides opportunities for them to talk
  • Gets them thinking for themselves
  • Helps them think through their own problems (construct their own knowledge)
• Listen carefully!
• Offer well-placed expansions of their sentences to enhance the meaning
  • If they say, “Outside” you repeat back, “You want to go outside?”
• Offer correct words and sentence form by re-framing the child’s comment
  • Don’t shame them by making them say it right
• Refer to many topics
• Use a variety of words
• Give children positive feedback about their behavior

2. In lecture, we discussed  delayed gratification and self-regulation when a child doesn’t get what they want. As an infant, you should spoil them because their wants are needs and they are learning to trust you. After about their year mark, parents can start to transition their behaviors to teach self-regulation. I think teaching our kids delayed gratification is one of the biggest favors we can do for them. Some ideas and tips that were shared included:

• If they want an item at the store, wait a week and see if they still want it.
  • If they do want it, they need to work for it (save the money up for it)
• We shouldn’t let them win every time or choose everything they do, you need to create experiences where they don’t get everything they want.
• Remember your short term vs long term goals.
• Rotate their toys
• Hold your boundaries, softly, but firmly.

3. Potty training. Not really the funnest topic to address. I really struggle with any body fluids so I hope that preparing ahead of time will make the transition easier. I love these 20 Best-Ever Potty Training Tips that Parenting.com offers. They interviewed a variety of parents and got their take on the messy subject. Read here. Dr. Walker also covered some great tips below for parents to try below.

Potty Training Tips

• Wait until your child is ready
• Dress your child in accessible clothing
• Have infinite patience (and carpet cleaner – let them be in their underwear, but not naked because then they can’t feel it)
• Have a positive and reinforcing attitude and don’t punish when they have an accident
• Praise when child is successful
• Let your child make choices
  • What type of potty seat and underwear
  • Sitting or standing for boys
• Schedule potty breaks (keep asking if they need to go)
• Be creative!
  • Poop is the hardest, so you need to be creative. Work with your child’s currency. Sing a song, read a book, or give a treat/sticker
• Teach good hygiene
  • Washing and wiping
• Set aside time for training (minimize distractions for you) wait until they are ready!!

Overall, if it’s impacting your relationship, stop and try again later! Be patient. It takes time.

Reference unless otherwise sited/linked:

• Walker, L. Class lecture 10: Early Childhood, School of Family Life 240: Parent Child Guidance, Winter 2017