Parents often keep a close eye on the milestones of a baby, because things change so much during the first year. But by the time you have a preschooler, you may have lost track of what your child should be doing from a developmental perspective. Here are the key developmental areas of children aged between three and five.
As they are now walking and talking little human beings, parents and caregivers appreciate the ability to be able to converse with their preschool child. It feels like a lot of progress from trying to second guess what a baby’s cry means, or what a certain gesture or expression really implies. But being able to talk to a preschooler still doesn’t make things simple for adults. During the ages of three, four and five, children are still going through a massive amount of developmental growth. This means that they don’t always understand what they are feeling, nor do they always have the means to express themselves fully.
There are a lot of things parents and caregivers can do to help preschoolers continue their progression and work through their development. A combination of love and attention, play, and social interaction through early childhood care settings can all help.
Here are the main characteristics of preschoolers’ development.
Emotions
A key area of understanding that children start to gain from the age of three onwards is around emotions. Preschoolers start to experience a range of emotions at this age – and they can feel them strongly too. Happy, sad, worried, afraid, frustrated or embarrassed, preschoolers are starting to get to grips with the concept of all of these emotions. Often preschoolers don’t know what to do with their emotions, and they can behave in a way that can seem irrational to adults. Remember that young children are just trying to make sense of all these new things they are feeling. You can help by talking things through with them, making them feel secure and helping them learn.
Play
Children play from when they are babies, but the importance and meaning of play changes a lot by preschool age. Playing is the main way children learn, and they are learning a lot about life at this stage. It’s how children explore emotions and feelings, and practice different scenarios in a safe way. It can take children until about the age of three to become interested in playing with other children. Playing with another child, or in small groups of children, helps a child take their development to the next level. They learn more about sharing and taking turns this way, and children start to understand the concept of imaginative play. This is important for recognising the difference between pretend and reality, and helps spark creativity too.
Language
From the age of about three, children have an ever-widening vocabulary and are starting to speak in full and meaningful sentences. They soak up new words every day, and repeat words you know that must have heard others speak, such as their friends at nursery or day-care. Developing talking and language skills makes the other aspects of their development more manageable – such as being able to talk about their emotions, and discuss games when playing with friends.
Independence
Children of the age of three and older are starting to realise they are becoming independent, and want to exercise their independence more and more. “I want to do it all by myself” is a phrase that many parents and care givers become familiar with at around this age. Wanting to be independent is good for children, and it’s important to allow them their own free will when it is safe and appropriate to do so. Continuing to teach them how to do things for themselves is important to support this stage of development, so teach them things such as how to get dressed or pour their own bowl of cereal.
Movement And Coordination
Children start to practice their fine motor skills and gross motor skills even as a baby, and they are still on this journey by preschool age. At the age of three or four, many children can climb up and down steps confidently, kick a ball and climb up play equipment. They are also becoming more coordinated to practice things such as balancing on one foot, and they can draw shapes on paper with a little more control. Keep encouraging your child to develop all their skills relating to movement and coordination at this age. While all children get the hang of these things at a different rate, children benefit from feeling more physically confident.
Thinking And Memory
Something that is quite fascinating to witness at the preschool age is how children start to think and remember things. This is all part of them gaining a concept of their own individual life, and their place in space and time. At this age, your child might start to tell you what they talked about with their friends at preschool, or recount something that happened earlier on in the day. Children at this age are also great at the recall of things that are becoming familiar to them, for example, counting, the alphabet, the storyline of favourite books, and the words to songs. Help your child continue to develop their memory by asking them to tell you about their day (even if you spent it together). Singing together while you are doing jobs around the house is also a great memory development tool.