|
3 to 6 year olds demand a lot of attention. They are entirely desirous of your devoted attention. They are naturally greedy and that is ok. They are ego centric and that is ok.
They need boundaries that they can test. No boundaries = fear while too restrictive boundaries = rebellion. Balance the boundaries by using protection from injury as a major guide. I.e. gates on stairs are smart while gating a child in one room is asking for war.
This is a prime time to solidify eating habits and reading habits. At this age they are ready to learn and reading daily is key to vocabulary development and speech. Spend extra time working on fluency by enunciating and exaggerating your word flow.
Proper eating habits are established at this time. Only provide quality whole food choices at this age. Avoid processed food and the "white foods". Once your child tastes the salty, fatty and carb loaded processed foods, you are on a losing train to poor eating. Make their plate varied in color and constantly challenge them with new foods and flavors. They need to expand their palate and have good memories about foods that are "different to the average American today".
Do not fall prey to the "starved child". A normal child will not starve himself in order to get his food choice. (autism spectrum children are one exception to this rule) When a child has hunger signals, they will eventually eat what is provided. Think back to the days of 3 square home made meals of the 1940's. Kids ate or they went hungry. They learned to appreciate mom's cooking without having an alternate choice of dinner from the main prepared meal.
If you go to a restaurant, feed them from your plate and steer clear of the kids menu (ALWAYS A GOOD CHOICE).
Try to be as encouraging as possible at this age while praising success when it happens and being there as an observer and teacher of resilience through failure. We all do our best work by persevering through a challenge. At this age they are no different in this respect.
Children are very challenging at this age. Love them anyway.
Dr. M
| 
