Child Development in Young Kids:
Time For School!
Young kids change rapidly once they become school children. We'll look at some of the developmental milestones in young children and lots of tips
to inspire you on your parenting journey.
In many countries, young children start school at five - many having attended pre-school/kindergarten for part of their earlier years.
What can your five year old do physically by this stage?
Milestones for Young Kids
- Holding a pencil properly and show reasonable control: tracing letters, and mostly colouring inside the lines.
- Young Children can reproduce many shapes, triangles, circles, squares etc.
- School aged children can start to use diagrams to assemble constructions - lego, three dimensional building blocks.
- Young kids can use scissors and mostly cut a straight line.
- Most school kids probably have a dominant hand by now.
- They are able to balance on either foot.
- School children can skillfully ride a tricycle, and many young children learn to ride a bike at this stage.
- By five, your child can jump, hop, skip fairly confidently.
The ABCs
Many young children have learnt to recite the ABCs, but don't really have much of a concept about what the letters represent.
They may recognize their name and a few other words. However, by school age, young kids start to understand upper and lower case letters, and increasingly gain enough
understanding to read and write.
Initial writing is usually copying, but as their vocabulary increases along with their cognitive abilities, they
start to be able to figure out words and attempt to write them. Spelling of course is not a skill at this stage.
You are going to get this one over and over!! I can't over emphasize the importance of reading.
Read constantly to your young kids, anything with words, when doing the shopping, when clearing the junkmail from the mail box.
Write them little notes with pictures and have them try to figure out what it says. I had great fun being the tooth fairy.
I still have some of the tiny letters I wrote - with fairy phonetic spelling! (maybe I'll publish them one day!).
I used a pencil because I could get a sharper point and could write tiny, tiny words. I used the child's name and told a little story about the
adventure to collect the tooth. For years my kids were convinced it couldn't be me because the writing was so small. (my apologies to all the real
fairies that can write correct English!)
Anyway, my point is, if you can read you can learn, and that opens so many doors.
Young Kids and Numbers
Young children start to develop better cognitive abilities. Counting, perhaps up to 100, and recognizing numbers.
A school child can start to learn to tell the time, and can relate daily activities to a time frame.
They start to understand a calendar - moving from how many 'sleeps' until Christmas, to understanding months.
Young kids start to understand money, recognizing the various coins and understanding purchase power!
Now is an excellent time to begin prosperity training! Although, don't forget you will have been demonstrating your
prosperity consciousness from your child's birth (perhaps even before!) Maybe check what you have inadvertently been saying around money!
Do you complain when bills arrive? Do you moan about not having enough money do to things?
Don't expect your young child to develop a fantastic prosperity consciousness if you haven't!
Teach young kids to dream build what they want to buy and save for it. Teach them about investing 10% or tithing.
They can easily learn to earn money at this age. When my son was four he was determined to buy a little BMX bike from the corner bike shop.
He saved and saved and kept talking to the owner, finally making an arrangement to pay it off! (I did have to go guarantor)
It was a real lesson for me, in creating what you want, and he learnt heaps about keeping focused on his dream, saving, earning money,
making payments on time etc.
You can read the whole story in my chapter in Amanda van der Gulik's free book:
Allowance Secrets: To Give or Not to Give? Amanda asked a range of experts their opinion
on whether or not to give kids an allowance. You will find heaps of ideas and inspiration in this incredible free resource.
You will also be offered Amanda's Insider Secrets To Teaching Children About Money. I would highly recomend this guide as a fabulous resource to teach children
all aspects about money; creation, responsibility, entrepreneurship, and much much more.
School Kids and Concepts
There are a lot of more complex cognitive development that happens from now on in young children.
They start to understand comparisons and relationships.
for example:
- Which glass has more water? Which has less?
- Rank or order things from Smallest to Biggest; Shortest to Tallest etc.
- Group things by shape or size, or with two categories, such as all the round red objects, all the tiny yellow pieces.
- Can understand positions, First, Second, Last; Oldest Middle, Youngest etc.
- Can understand simple fractions, how many pieces if the cake is cut in quarters?
Going on a Quest
Young children are full of questions and so eager to learn. Take lots of opportunities to take them on little adventures to find out about stuff.
The internet has made this a lot more instant, it is easy to google something.
But don't stop there, take them to the local library when they ask about dinosaurs.
Visit a museum when they hear about Egypt. When they have been doing art, take them to a local art or sculpture exhibition.
Visit a retirement village, a fire station, a hospital. See if there are factories in your area that run tours.
Language
Your school kid will have a Vocabulary of approximately 1,500 words! He can put them into sentences using around seven words at a time.
School age children start to understand tense; went, swam, and start saying things like "I jumped", instead of "I jump" (adding ed to verbs).
Young kids can tell a story, first from looking at the pictures in a book and telling something familiar, then beginning to make up stories about an event or pictures.
Humor starts to develop at this stage, telling jokes and playing tricks is a favorite (and yes, you do have to laugh even though you have heard it ten times already!)
Humor is one of the hardest things for speakers of other languages to pick up. Even very competent English or Spanish speakers have difficulty picking up humor
(and sarcasm) in a language that wasn't their first. The younger the child is in learning a second language, the more familiar it will be.
Young kids pick up languages far easier than adults!
Social Interaction
As a young child's language develops, their social skills also increase. Being able to communicate verbally increases the interaction -
but don't dismiss the importance of non verbal communication. Your young kids will start to develop close friends, sometimes having a
best friend.
The ability to play co-operatively increases, sharing toys and ideas and taking turns. Young kids imagination is wonderful, and some of their games
are full of incredible play-acting.
Middle School Years
One of the obvious physical changes, is loosing teeth!
Click here for my tip above about the Toothfairy!
There are often rapid changes in height and most school age children gain about 4.5 lbs or 2 kg per year in body mass.
Physical control becomes greater, and most young kids enjoy lots of vigorous physical activity - sports, ball games, riding a bike, swimming.
(not me, I could mostly be found hiding between the bookcase and a chair, reading!).
Many children at this age have trouble sitting still.
A good teacher will balance expectations of quiet, concentrated time, with time to let off steam!
Fine motor skills increase, with school kids
developing greater abilities with writing, drawing, and assembling detailed models. Your child's concentration span increases, particularly when they are
interested in something.
School kids have fun with problem solving and sorting activities like puzzles and mazes and word find games.
As young children get older they become more self-sufficient, tying shoelaces, packing their own schoolbag, remembering to take a special item to school.
Rude Words and Tricky Questions
As young kids grow up, they start to explore more complex language, and start experimenting with slang and swearing, often finding rude words hilarious.
You will sometimes have almost adult like conversations and discussions about things they are curious about.
They will start to ask the hard questions, such as questions about death and dying or why some children in other countries don't have a house or enough food.
This can be a real challenge to parents! Try to be as honest as you can. If you are not sure about what you believe, then say that.
Young children pick up on your confusion or uncertainty anyway and will just keep asking more questions!
How did I handle some of those trickier questions that I didn't have a definitive answer for?
We would go and find out - what did other people think/believe, what did different religions teach about it? And discuss those answers.
You don't need to be the font of all knowledge, your child will grow up to make up their own mind about a lot of stuff.
Just teach them to research and enquire and question. I believe that is far better than giving them absolute answers.
I still believe that the more we as adults question and enquire, the more we open up possibilities and opportunities.
Education
If you are interesting in looking at alternatives to traditional schooling for your young kids, check out our pages about Homeschooling and Unschooling.
We even have a mini forum where you can ask other parents questions or contribute activities.
What is the advantage of homeschooling your young kids?
This article talks about the advantages of homeschooling, and how to minimise the cons, such as social isolation and getting support.
Readers Contributions and Questions from Parents about Homeschooling
Articles and Questions from other parents, discussing the pros and cons of homeschooling. Ask Questions, post your reply, share your experience.
We have even had a young boy write in and give us his perspective.
Unschooling, a more radical approach to homeschooling
This article explores Unschooling and how it differs from more conventional homeschooling.
Share your homeschooling activities here!
What homeschooling activities are other parents doing with their children? Get inspiration and share your success stories.
What's Next?
From Young Kids to Pre Teens
Is your daughter 11 going on 18? This article looks at the wonderful world of pre-teenagers. Just before they blossom into adolescence.
Click here for Information and tips about Adolescent Psychology.
What's happening in their head? How are they feeling, what's important for Teenagers?
Adolescence: Physical Development.
Information about Physical Development and Sexuality in Teenagers and of course, tips to inspire you.
Resources for Parents
Super Skills 4 Kids
Is our home study course designed to help young kids set goals, envision the future they want,
and achieve anything! If a child wants to work on a behavioral goal, Super Skills is a perfect tool, or they may want to learn a practical skill like giving talks in class.
Super Skills 4 Kids is packed with tools and comes with a bonus workbook. I've had many parents say they use many of the techniques for themselves!
Disciplining children.
For more ideas on how to discipline a child read my article on disciplining young kids and teens.
Do Children Misbehave?
More ideas on handling misbehaving children, and understanding their needs.
Ask Annie
Online Coaching with Annie - Do you have a question about your young kids? Need some help with behaviour issues or challenges with school?
You can also read what other parents are asking, and comment on our readers contributions, or my answers. Lots of tips and gems in these.
Click the link above and scroll to the bottom to read what other parents have asked.
Teen Problems?
Teenage years can be a delight and a challenge for many parents. Heres some ideas on handling some of those tricky times!
Teenage Behavior
This Audio answers questions from readers about communicating with teenagers. You can listen to it here.
Parenting Coach
Interested in having a Parenting Coach to empower you to be the parent you aspire to be?
