$Unique_ID{PAR00226}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{2 1/2 Years to 5 Years:  How Your Child Develops}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Editors of Consumer Guide
Mendelson, Robert A
Mendelson, Lottie M
Meyerhoff, Michael K
Ames, Louise Bates}
$Subject{2 1/2 Years to 5 Years Develop Develops Developing growth height
weight preschooler preschoolers coordination balance walk stairs buttons
zippers shoes toilet training bowel control bladder nighttime rational thought
reasonable logical think thinking logic reason reality real reasoning death
God remember anticipate memory time sense vocabulary grammar lisps
mispronounce mispronounces mispronouncing lisp lisping stutter stutters
stuttering number numbers letter letters math read reads reading love hate
separation separations sociable social good bad right wrong crime punishment
punish punished self-esteem CRITICAL PERIOD PERIODS LIMITATION LIMITATIONS
POTENTIAL POTENTIALS}
$Log{
Fingers become more skilled and capable of tasks like stringing beads*0050101.tif
Your preschooler will have superb coordination and balance by age five (a)*0053801.tif
Your preschooler will have superb coordination and balance by age five (b)*0057301.tif
Your preschooler's fingers become increasingly skilled and under control*0057501.tif}

The New Parents' Question & Answer Book


2 1/2 Years to 5 Years:  How Your Child Develops


     How much growth in height and weight can I expect my preschooler to
experience during this period?

     Although his overall rate of growth will continue to slow somewhat during
this period, you still will see impressive gains.  By five years of age,
preschoolers typically stand between 39 and 46 inches tall, with the average
somewhere around 43 inches; and they typically weigh between 35 and 55 pounds,
with the average somewhere just above 40 pounds.  The normal ranges for height
and weight steadily widen as children get older, so you have to expect more
and more variability between your preschooler's height and weight and the
averages for his age group.  Also, keep in mind that preschoolers tend to grow
in spurts and then may lag for a while.  Therefore, don't expect your
preschooler's position at the moment to be a permanent indication of his
status.  As long as he is not routinely hanging around one extreme of the
chart, you probably have little to worry about.


     What kind of advances will I see in my preschooler's large muscle skills
during this period?

     By the time your preschooler is five, he probably will have superb
coordination and balance and be capable of moving his body quite effectively
in relation to other things around him.  Your preschooler will likely be able
to walk up stairs one step at a time and, for the most part, be able to walk
down stairs in the same manner.  He may be able to balance himself on one foot
for several seconds and may have developed excellent running, jumping,
skipping, hopping, and climbing capacities.  In ordinary, everyday
activities--such as walking--you will notice that he is actually becoming
rather graceful and adultlike.  He may even be ready for activities such as
skating or riding a bicycle.


     How much more adept at small muscle tasks will my preschooler become
during this period?

     Quite a bit.  Throughout this period, your preschooler's fingers will
become increasingly skilled and under control.  He will be able to fasten and
unfasten buttons and zippers and lace his shoes.  He be able to use
paintbrushes and crayons with ease and probably will be capable of tasks like
stringing small beads or cutting a fairly straight line with a pair of safe
scissors.  Your preschooler is likely to become very competent at using a cup
without spilling and at manipulating his table utensils.  He may be able to
throw a ball with impressive accuracy, and he may be able to catch a ball
using primarily his hands rather than his arms.  He will be able to take apart
and put together many of the everyday items in your home with ease.  He'll
also be able to use many small devices--such as pencil sharpeners and hole
punchers--on his own.


     When will my preschooler be fully ready for toilet training?

     There is no set age at which preschoolers become physically and
emotionally mature enough to understand and control what is happening during
the toileting process.  There are many facets involved, and the age at which
each can be mastered varies greatly from child to child.  Although voluntary
control of bowel and bladder muscles may come in prior to the second birthday,
and the end of "negativism" may occur at about the same time, it is a rare
child who is successfully toilet trained before two and a half years of age.
In order for things to go smoothly, your preschooler must be aware of the need
to go and be able to communicate that need to you either verbally or by facial
expressions.  He must be able to understand--and preferably express as
well--simple statements including terms such as "wet," "dry," "potty," "go,"
etc.  He should be demonstrating an inclination for imitative behavior.  He
should be showing a dislike for wet or dirty diapers.  He must be able to stay
dry for at least a couple of hours.  He must be able to pull his pants up and
down.  He should also be at a stage where he is anxious to please you and has
a sense of social appropriateness.  This is quite a lot, and if your
preschooler hasn't mastered everything before four years of age, don't
worry--he's still within the normal range.  For more information on signs of
readiness and advice on how to begin toilet training, see "Daily Care Basics:
2 1/2 Years to 5 Years."


     Do the various parts of toilet-training readiness follow a predictable
pattern?

     Not at all.  You may hear a variety of general "rules"--such as "first
comes bowel control, then daytime bladder control, and finally nighttime
bladder control" or "girls achieve bladder control before boys"--but the
exceptions to these rules are so numerous as to make them virtually
meaningless.  Even children within the same family often display distinctly
different patterns of readiness.  Furthermore, given that there are so many
factors involved in the total process, it is extremely difficult to predict
precisely when certain combinations will come together in your preschooler.
For example, your preschooler may achieve basic physical and emotional
readiness relatively early, but if his small muscle skills are developing a
bit slowly, he will have a hard time mastering daytime procedures which
require him to handle more complicated articles of clothing.  Therefore, it is
a good idea to remain as patient as possible and to keep any and all
expectations to a minimum.


     Although he's clearly capable of rational thought, my preschooler is not
always reasonable or logical.  Is something wrong?

     Your preschooler is perfectly normal.  Keep in mind that the ability to
use thoughts does not arrive in complete form.  Your preschooler will have to
learn how to process and manipulate ideas in the same way he had to learn how
to employ and control his body early on.  This requires a lot of experience
over many years.  Although he will have come a long way by the end of this
period, your preschooler still will have some distance to go before you can
count on him to "think" in the same way that you do.  At this point, his
thinking is still simple in form and limited in scope, and it is governed
largely by his own peculiar view of the world.  Consequently, whenever your
preschooler displays a capacity for "logic" or "reason," what he says or does
probably will make perfect "sense" to him, but it may not always make similar
sense to anyone else.


     Will my child continue to think of everything only in terms of how it
affects him?

     For the most part, your preschooler will be processing everything that
happens strictly as it relates to his own experience.  So, for example, if you
ask him why it gets dark at night, his response is likely to be "Because I
have to go to sleep."  If he likes a certain flavor of ice cream or wants to
participate in a particular activity, he will assume that everyone else feels
the same way.  If he gets hurt during an incident with another child, he is
not likely to accept the explanation that it was an "accident"--he got hurt,
and as far as he's concerned, that's the bottom line.  When he sees people on
television, he may believe that they can see him, too.  When sitting at a
table, he may talk about something he's looking at as if you were looking at
it, too, even though you may have an obstructed view from your side of the
table.  Keep in mind that your preschooler isn't acting "stupid" or "selfish"
in such instances.  He simply does not yet have sufficient experiences to
interpret the way things work in any other manner.


     Will my preschooler get better at distinguishing between what is real and
what isn't during this period?

     As he proceeds through this period, your preschooler will achieve a much
better grasp of "reality."  He will no longer believe that everything that
moves is alive, and he will be able to tell the difference between a dream and
a genuine experience.  In fact, your preschooler probably will become somewhat
obsessed with the notion of "real" and may repeatedly ask you if this, that,
or the other thing is real or not.  However, to a certain extent, your
preschooler's judgment will be controlled by his own needs, fears, and
desires; so if he has a particularly frightening nightmare or is especially
fond of some television-induced fantasy, you may have a tough time convincing
him that what is involved doesn't really exist.  On the other hand, you may
also become increasingly frustrated as he no longer is content with various
make-believe items and starts insisting that he wants a "real horse" or wants
to go on a "real picnic."


     What are some examples of the "advanced-but-imperfect" reasoning my
preschooler will use?

     Your preschooler will begin to "figure things out" quite regularly during
this period, and he will apply some fairly reliable rules in the process.
However, these rules will be rather rudimentary and will not allow him to come
up with the "correct" answer in every situation or under all circumstances.
So, for example, if you present your preschooler with two rows of six evenly
spaced pennies each, he will tell you that the two rows are equal; but if you
spread out the pennies in one of the rows, he will tell you that there are now
more pennies in that row because "longer is more."  Similarly, if you present
him and his brother with identical glasses of milk filled to the same level,
and your preschooler insists on having more, you can pour his milk into a
narrower, taller glass, and he will be satisfied because "higher is more."
Keep in mind that even though he may be "wrong," your preschooler is
demonstrating good thinking skills.  He just needs time to develop the
capacity for taking multiple factors and exceptions into account.


     What will some of the limits be on my preschooler's ability to "figure
things out" at this point?

     Perhaps the most noticeable limitations will be that he can only focus on
one aspect of a situation at a time, and he can only think in one direction at
a time.  For instance, at the store, your preschooler probably will be adept
at distinguishing amongst apples, oranges, and bananas.  He may even
comprehend the concept that all these items are pieces of fruit.  However, if
you purchase six apples, one orange, and one banana, and you ask him if you
bought more apples or more pieces of fruit, he is likely to tell you that you
bought more apples.  For one thing, he can only view the red, shiny items as
either apples or pieces of fruit at that moment--they can't be both apples and
pieces of fruit in his mind.  For another thing, he may be able to see that
the apples are pieces of fruit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he will
see that some pieces of fruit can be apples.  Again, this is not a sign of low
intelligence.  It simply shows that your preschooler needs time to become as
quick, strong, and agile in applying his mental skills as he already has
become in using his physical skills.


     Will my preschooler be able to understand abstract concepts like "death"
and "God" at this point?

     Your preschooler will have a great deal of difficulty relating to
anything on a purely abstract level.  Consequently, even at the end of this
period, he will have a tendency to translate anything having to do with such
concepts into something with which he is familiar on a concrete level.  For
example, he may comprehend God as a sort of fatherly or grandfatherly figure
or maybe even in terms of something like a lifeguard at the beach who watches
over everybody.  Similarly, death may be understood as a form of sleep--and it
could be a while before your preschooler stops thinking of it as reversible.
Keep in mind that his perception of such concepts may bring comfort to your
preschooler at times, but they also may cause intense fear at others.  For
instance, he may be satisfied that Grandma is going to sleep for a long time
at one point, then later he afraid to go to sleep himself because he doesn't
want to die.  Also, be prepared to receive a lot of questions from your
preschooler about the specifics of how God does this or that, what happens to
you when you die, etc. as he continually strives to make sense out of these
fascinating concepts.


     How extensive will my preschooler's ability to remember and anticipate be
at this point?

     By the end of this period, your preschooler probably will have a very
well-developed sense of time.  His memory capacity will be quite strong, and
he will be able to place various events in relation to each other fairly
accurately.  Consequently, your preschooler will remember last summer, last
Christmas, his last birthday, and Grandma's last visit.  He also will have a
reasonably clear sense of what can be expected to happen the next time around.
On an everyday level, he will have a clear sense of "lunchtime," "nap time,"
"dinnertime," "bedtime," and all sorts of other "times."  He will be pretty
adept at talking about "yesterday" and "tomorrow" or even "last week" and
"this week."  Although the subtle differences between "Tuesday" and
"Wednesday" may still be beyond him, he will probably be able to distinguish
the weekend quite comfortably.  Your preschooler will use phrases like "a
while ago" or "in a few minutes" in a suitable fashion, but probably will be
incapable of great precision.  Time still will be sensed in relationship to
important events in his own life, and it will be a couple of years yet before
he has the abstract abilities necessary to tell time according to the clock.


     Although his vocabulary is very impressive, my preschooler's grammar is
horrible.  Why the discrepancy?

     While your preschooler will continue to pick up new words quickly and
easily, learning how to put those words together will be comparatively
difficult for him.  At first, he simply mimicked whatever he heard, so his
early grammar probably was pretty good.  However, he is now at the point where
he is no longer just imitating; he is actively retrieving words from his own
mind and using his thought processes to put them together in a meaningful way.
Unfortunately, he is at the stage where his rules for such procedures are very
basic and straight-forward.  So for example, a toddler might say "I have two
feet" when mimicking his mother, but a preschooler will say "I have two foots"
because he is applying the rule of adding an "s" to make a plural.  Similarly,
he might say "I goed to school yesterday" or "I wented to school yesterday."
It will take time for your preschooler to learn and comprehend all the
exceptions and special circumstances, so be patient.  Give him credit for
making real progress in language learning even if that progress results in his
being "wrong" from time to time.


     Sometimes my preschooler lisps or otherwise mispronounces words.  Is this
typical at this point?

     It certainly is.  Quite often, a preschooler will know the meaning of a
word and how to use it properly but will as yet be unable to produce the
sounds required to pronounce it with perfect accuracy.  Since the "s" sound is
typically one of the last to be mastered, it is not unusual at all for
preschoolers to lisp.  As a matter of fact, lisping remains common for many
years.  In addition, you may notice occasional "disfluency," similar to
stuttering, in your preschooler's speech.  While genuine stuttering may occur
in response to stress with some children, most preschoolers simply are quicker
with their thoughts and feelings than they are with putting together and
producing the words to express those thoughts and feelings.  In other words,
at this point, your preschooler's apparent "problem" in this area probably is
due to a very normal condition--his mind is a little more agile than his
tongue.  As the months go by, you will hear less and less of this sort of
thing.


     My preschooler is very good at recognizing numbers and letters.  Does
this mean he's ready to learn math and reading?

     Not necessarily.  It is important to realize that activities such as
recognizing numbers and letters, counting to ten, and reciting the alphabet
are not always connected directly to doing math or reading.  Your preschooler
may enjoy these skills and activities strictly for their own sake.  He may
have no inclination whatsoever to do anything more than practice them and
perform them over and over again.  Math and reading require more abstract
abilities, which your preschooler may very well not yet possess.  If you push
too hard and too fast, it is possible that you will destroy his pleasure in
those that he has already acquired.  Therefore, it is a good idea to wait
until your preschooler shows more definite signs, such as asking "What does
this spell?" or "How do you put those numbers together?" before you consider
him truly ready to learn such things.  And remember, early ability in these
areas rarely makes much of a difference in the long run, so being patient
probably won't be anywhere near as dangerous to your preschooler's progress as
being impatient is likely to be.


     My preschooler tends to "love" things or "hate" things, with very little
in between.  Is this a vocabulary problem or an emotional problem?

     This is not really a "problem" at all, but rather a sign that your child
is a typical preschooler.  This is an age in which high degrees of exuberance
and intensity can be expected.  Compared to the average adult, your
preschooler has very little experience with emotions, so he derives a certain
amount of comfort in being at the extremes.  Subtle shadings just are not his
style at this point.  Although his feelings are genuine and should be
respected within reason, it is important to realize that they reflect a normal
emotional immaturity rather than keen insight and judgment.  As a result, when
your preschooler announces that he loves going shopping, don't be surprised if
he becomes bored and irritable moments after you arrive at the mall.
Similarly, if your preschooler announces that he hates you, don't worry--he'll
probably be climbing onto your lap a few minutes later.


     Lately, my preschooler has been handling separations from me easily, and
he's quick to become close to new playmates, teachers, etc.  Am I losing my
importance to him?

     On the contrary.  How sociable a preschooler is typically reflects the
social atmosphere in his home.  If your child is quick to make friends and
become close with other people, it probably indicates that he has learned that
social relationships are pleasant and productive things.  He is now eager to
apply all the wonderful lessons he's received from you to a whole new world of
people beyond his family.  In other words, his interest in them is derived
from his relationship with you and thus does not diminish that relationship in
any way.  If you ever need confirmation of this, just wait until a separation
goes on a little too long or a crisis arises.  You can bet that your
preschooler will want you--and only you--in a really big way.


     My preschooler seems to understand "good and bad" and "right and wrong,"
but he has some strange ideas about "crime and punishment."  Why is this?

     This is another case where a preschooler's lack of broad experience
combined with his still basic logic abilities can cause him to come up with
some seemingly strange ideas.  When it comes to a concept such as punishment,
most preschoolers have difficulty separating act from intention.
Consequently, your preschooler may feel that someone who accidentally drops a
tray of glasses is worthy of greater punishment than someone who breaks one
glass in a fit of anger.  Also, most preschoolers tend to be arbitrary about
punishment since they have difficulty putting together a sophisticated system
by which the punishment fits neatly with the crime.  As a result, your
preschooler may feel that a "time out" is a suitable punishment for everything
from spilling milk to murder simply because this is the only punishment with
which he has firsthand knowledge.


     Will I still need to help build my preschooler's self-esteem during this
period?

     Nurturing the roots of self-esteem was a major consideration during
infancy and toddlerhood when your child was exhibiting his first major
physical accomplishments.  It is equally--if not more--important now as he
begins to demonstrate his increasing mental abilities.  Your preschooler is
putting together many thoughts and feelings, and he is eagerly expressing them
at every opportunity.  The extent to which he will learn to feel good about
his mental abilities will depend heavily upon how key people in his life react
to them.  This is why an understanding of how your preschooler's mind works is
so essential.  Because his intellectual abilities have come a long way but are
not yet fully mature, he often will come up with results that are "wrong" or
"bad."  Therefore, he may not receive the credit that his vastly improved
reasoning processes deserve unless you realize and applaud the fact that he
is, indeed, making great progress.


THE NOTION OF "CRITICAL PERIODS"

     In the course of absorbing information about early childhood, you may
have come across books, articles, or professionals that refer to "critical
periods" in development.  The first month is supposedly a critical period for
parent-child bonding, the second year is a critical period for language
learning, etc.  The implication is that if something doesn't happen at a
specific time, it will never happen.  This is a somewhat misleading notion.
Clearly, certain developments typically take place at certain points, and when
they don't, it usually causes problems.  But child-development specialists
with vast experience prefer to use the term "sensitive" periods rather than
"critical" periods.  Some things tend to go quite smoothly at certain times in
the life span, and it is often rather difficult to introduce them or turn them
around later on.  For instance, a child who experiences routine hearing loss
during the first two years definitely will have problems in language learning
that will be very hard to overcome.  However, it is important to remember that
while development is very orderly in many ways, it is also very forgiving.  We
still don't understand all the processes involved as well as we would like to,
and we can't always come up with quick and easy answers to every problem that
arises.  On the other hand, we do know enough to say that it is never "too
late" for any child to learn anything.  There are no circumstances under which
parents should feel that they have no choice but to give up and stop trying.
There will be times when opportunities are more open, but they are never
completely closed.


LIMITATIONS AND POTENTIALS

     Many parents believe that, thanks to research in psychology and
education, we now have the capacity to produce higher levels of achievement in
young children than we ever could before.  This is not quite true.  It would
be similar to claiming that, thanks to medical advances, we now can help
people live longer than ever before.  The fact of the matter is that two
thousand years ago, the oldest humans lived a little past the age of one
hundred--and the same is true today.  What medical advances have meant is that
more people are living longer lives.  The same applies to early development.
With recent insights obtained from research, more children are making more of
their early potential.  However, no one has learned to produce a preschooler
who is any smarter than the smartest preschooler of a generation ago.
Likewise, no one has figured out a way to make every preschooler as smart as
the smartest preschooler.  The danger of the popular misconception is that
some parents feel that they should be pushing their child toward an ultimate
standard of achievement.  They further believe that anything short of that
standard constitutes failure.  It is important for parents to realize,
however, that the best they can do is help their child make the most of
whatever potential he has, and that all children have a different amount of
potential in different areas.  Encouraging and assisting your child to do his
very best is fine.  However, if you don't recognize, accept, and appreciate
your child for exactly what he is, your efforts probably will never find
fulfillment, and they are likely to be ultimately counterproductive.