Four Year Old Visit
FOUR – what a strange, confusing, delightful year. This is a crucial year for parents, in
many ways. It’s the first year your child really seems like an independent, autonomous
person. He or she asks fascinating questions and makes fascinating observations; has
learned the meaning of sharing – if not how to share in all situations; and is aware of sex
and gender. All TOO aware, sometimes.
Yet the four year old often can’t give you a straight answer, even to who his or her best
friends are or what went on at school today. And if you walk into the room and confront
Four, a shattered cookie jar, and chocolate on the chin, Four will insist that the Mouse did
it, or his baby sister, or even Big Bird.
Four year olds can be very rebellious, and they have the words to be rebellious in. “I hate
you!” they yell. “You can’t make me!” they taunt. And the very next hour they are
charming you out of your skin, discussing dinosaurs and working puzzles and beating
you at Candyland.
What are the bywords for age four?
1. Four year olds confuse reality and imagination. In fact, this may be the peak
of this confusion. Magical thinking happens all the time, for good or for not so
good. For good, it gives rise to marvelous imaginative stories. For “evil,” it’s
used by the four year old to remove blame: ‘If I say it, it must be true.’ Hence the
incident with the cookie jar. The four year old thinks that if she “casts a spell
with words” she can really make it true that baby brother, or Santa Clause, ate the
cookies and broke the jar. This is NOT lying – not in the sense that nine-year old
or a fourteen year old or a forty year old lies. The Four year old is just trying out
the difference between reality and imagination. For this reason, when you find an
overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence, DON’T ASK who’s at fault.
Address the incident instead. “The cookies are gone. The jar is broken. This
makes me very angry. This means time out, and no cookies at all until we get (or
make) some more!”
This means separating misbehavior and telling the truth. That’s not easy for many
parents, but it will make age Four a lot easier and more fun and contribute clearer
thinking in the child.
And because Four is so imaginative, try, try, try to keep the TV off. Four will
watch Spongebob and Pokemon and so on again and again and again, but that
fascination and seeming appreciation and is based on anxiety. These movies are
NOT mean for children unable to tell fantasy from reality. Better by far are books
that address the child’s dilemma: what’s real, and what’s not? – such as the Dr.
Seuss book, “And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.”
It’s fine to pretend, and it’s fine for parents to enter into Pretend. For the child,
the parent’s reactions let him or her know which is which. But beware the grownup, whether relative or professional, who teases the four year old’s inability to be
certain of the difference between real and pretend, and who carries the fame too
far. The doctor who tells the little girl she’s really a boy, or the grandma who
tells the little boy that his “face will freeze that way” need a parent to set the child
straight and reassure him or her. You may even need to say that the offending
adult was “silly” or “dumb” or “not nice.”
2. Four year olds can take responsibility
Some of the most common difficulties at four involve a tug-of-war between the
parent’s demanding and needing obedience, and the child’s resistance. Getting
dressed on time, eating with the family, going to bed – these are focuses of
conflict.
And the way parents handle these conflicts lay the framework for family
relationships and discipline throughout childhood and adolescence.
This is the best time for parents to think, with each conflict, “Is this MY problem
or is it HIS or HER problem?” If the answer is that the problem belongs to the
child, it’s important to let the child truly own the problem. If Cherub is wearing
only underpants and socks when it’s time to leave for preschool, the response is
not to dress him/her forcibly, or to show up late, or scream and yell and have a
terrible day. The response is to get a coat and shoes and take Cherub to shool,
half-undressed. And not punitively either. None of this “If you’d gotten dressed
on time…” or “I told you so.”
Express sympathy. “It’s too bad. I know it’s going to be hard going to school
dressed like this, but at least you’ll have your warm coat and your shoes and your
good friends will understand. And I know it won’t happen again.”
Now, this of course presupposes that the responsible parents have indeed allowed
the time and the calm environment that would have allowed the child to get
dressed if he or she had wanted to, and was not just testing what limits exist.
3. Four to six year olds are fascinated by sex and bathrooms. At four, this is
mostly expressed by a great love of any word with the words “poop” or “peepee”
in it. Sometimes truly offensive words will be brought home and loudly explored.
It’s best for parents to prepare themselves ahead of time for this. Most of the
time, the child has only vague ideas of what the more sophisticated words mean,
and is just exhilarated by the shock value.