Through the years

Commented by 0 Member   View Comments

Article Summary

There are three main developmental areas: physical, cognitive and social.

As children grow these areas mature to create the in­dividual.

Physical development is the gradual con­trol over the body from balance as a baby to greater control over fine movements as a child.

Cognitive development is the develop­ment of thinking and reasoning, it is the way we adapt to and conquer reality. It consists of thinking, memory, speaking, knowledge, and learning: all of which informs the child?s experience of the world as he/she grows.

Social development is gaining social skills that help us understand the emotions of oth­ers and how to moderate our behaviour to be socially acceptable.

The years through their eyes: Ages three ? four

Physical development:

1. I love to move. I have a lot of thoughts and emotions that I convey through move­ment, as I don?t have the language to express them.
2. My running is much quicker and more coordinated than a year ago.
3. I can pour myself a drink with two hands but find it difficult to stop before spilling.
4. I can unbutton my clothes but doing the buttons up is more difficult.

How good am I at Personal Care?

1. I want to do all of my PC by myself! I can open the tub now to get out my wipes. I do wipe my own bum but sometimes I don?t do a good job.
2. I do a more thorough job of washing my hands as I can squirt the foam out of the bottle using a pump and rub from side to side and rinse all of my hands not just my palms.
3. The bath is really for fun but mum makes me wash and this is boring. When I try I am quite good at washing my body and I am starting to rub shampoo into my hair but I don?t like washing my hair as I don?t want any soap or water in my eyes.
4. I can dress and undress.

Social Development:

1. I now play with my peers and this is shaping my be­haviour, though I still play happily by myself if no one else is around.
2. I still cannot imagine the world from someone else?s point of view and this is why my peers and I are not friends in the way that an adult would understand the meaning of friendship.
3. I will often give emotions to inanimate objects like they do in story­books; this can feel so real that I will often confuse reality and fan­tasy.
4. I love surprises and secrets.
5. Same sex role models fascinate all of my playmates.
6. I chose to socialise in my own gender groups.

Cognitive Development:

1. I have 900-1000 words, now that?s a lot, and I learn more and more every day. My sentences are longer with more verbs and I have about 1000 large sentences that I can use.
2. My imagination is on overdrive and I make up stories behind every­thing I see.
3. I have started to feel new emotions like shame, guilt and, above all pride! I now know how I want to be.
4. I now start to understand what competition is, how win­ning and losing feels and what I am good or bad at. I really want to win.
5. I still believe that people act only in accordance with their desires.
6. My attention span is three minutes. I can remember what happened yesterday.

The years through their eyes: Ages four ? five

Physical Development:

1. My coordination and balance are nearly as good as an adult but my spatial judgement is still lacking, which means though I won?t fall over as often I need you to monitor me when I cross the road or want to leap off something too high.
2. My hands are now under my control so I can dress myself. I can almost do my shoelaces up which means I am almost a grown up as it?s so hard to do.
3. My eating is not nearly so messy. I still need help to cut my food but I am a grown up now and feed myself with a fork and spoon.

Social development:

1. More and more I tend to play only with kids of my own gender. I look to mummy and daddy to see how the sexes should behave. I look for gestures, feelings, defences and self-images to inform my own sexu­ality, which I now understand is fixed.
2. When playing with my friends we enjoy play more based in reality than fantasy. We swap roles a lot, which means I experience many perspectives.
3. I also tell fibs when I think I?ve done something wrong as I don?t want anyone to tell me off. Most of my friends tell lies. Our sense of mo­rality is still very simple but it is maturing so it is not solely based on justice but also includes empathy.
4. I have not learned to discuss, convince or argue like a grown up yet.

Cognitive Development:

1. Wow, I am good at speaking, I have 1500 words!
2. I understand the idea of smaller and longer when presented with contrast.
3. I can recognise things almost as well as any adult but I don?t remem­ber things nearly so well. My memory is improving now even though I don?t know what memory is.
4. I do not like people changing my routine; it makes me anxious, how will I know what to do?
5. My language skills are improving rapidly.
6. I ask lots of ?why?-questions. This curiosity about the world plus the bravery from my new sense of power sends me off on a voyage of discovery. I am learning through experience, these new experiences alter my perspective of my place in the world.
7. I now understand two really big concepts. Firstly other people don?t necessarily know what I do and secondly that there has to be a rea­son for everything. My curiosity is huge.

How good am I at Personal Care?

1. Mum and dad still take me to the bathroom and help me by enforcing proper behaviour. I still don?t always want to do it their way.
2. I can take one wipe at a time from the wipes? tub, which was too fid­dly before.
3. I can be so busy playing and doing interesting things that I just don?t want to go to the toilet and so I hold everything in. I also hold every­thing in when we are out, as I don?t want to go to the toilet at someone else?s house. What happens if I make a mess or they don?t have the same wipes as I do at home?
4. I can make lots of bubbles in the bath with the foam, which is a lot of fun. When we wash my hair I can make the shampoo go all bubbly and I try to rinse it out, but this still is upsetting as I worry about get­ting the bubbles in my eyes. Sometimes I just get so bored that I can?t be bothered do­ing a good job.

The years through their eyes: Ages five - six

Physical Development:

1. I love physical play that lets me use all the motor skills I have ac­quired, like cycling, climbing trees, roller-skating, skipping and doing gymnastics. I also enjoy all sorts of sticking, colouring, cutting out and gluing.
2.When I sit down for food I am grown up enough to control a knife when spreading soft things.

Social Development:

1. I am less overwhelmed by how vast the world is and am more in con­trol of things. Though less fearful than I was at four I am still married to my routine at home and school as I am still figuring out how it all works.
2. I will ask permission before I do something. I like to understand what?s going on now and need to feel I have a degree of control over my environment. If my routine is to change I want to know about it in advance so I can plan.
3. I really want to know where babies come from; mum says they are from mummies? tummies. All of my friends are very interested in how the body works.
4. I am happy to share but get upset if you don?t ask to borrow my things first.
1. I can see now how my actions make other people feel, before I just saw how it made them act. This is the start of responsibility and therefore conscience.
5. I still think in terms of good and bad not right or wrong.
6. I can?t imagine my world before me, and places only exist if they have relevance like the place where granny lives.

Cognitive Development:

1. I use language in a creative way and I spontaneously use descriptive words.
2. I can follow three commands one after another like ?pick up your cup bring it here and put it on the table?.
3. I love books about animals that act like humans and have lives like mine where they have a mummy and daddy and live in a house, be­cause I can understand this.
1. I want to play the piano, sing and dance.
4. I understand time concepts such as morning, afternoon, night etc and also tomorrow, yesterday and today, but I still live very much in the present and am only inter­ested in what?s happening now.
5. I understand what memory is now but I still don?t know how much time I need to invest in trying to remember something by looking or thinking about it.

How good am I at Personal Care?

 I can bath myself but I need an adult to turn on the taps. However, if I am tired I might not do a thorough job in cleaning myself.
 I am now fairly competent at washing my hands, so as long as the taps are not too stiff I can do it by myself.
 I am not bothered by attempting personal care now as I don?t find it so frustrating any more.
 Now is the time that my friends and I start to be competent in wiping our bottoms.


Back to top




1. Category Tags:
2. Development



3. Article Tags:
4. verbal skills
,
5. growth pattern
,
6. social skills
,
7. brain development
,
8. growth chart