Other Important
Information
The period from ages 2-7 is the
ideal time for children to develop
physical skills. In fact, many adults
are still in the elementary stage
in basic physical activities.
School age children’s new longer,
leaner bodies enable them to
become increasingly competent in
their gross motor movements. In
response, caregivers should
provide ample opportunities for the
practice of large motor activities
(running, jumping) in play for at
least 60 minutes each day
(restricted to 30 minutes each time
because of their attention span
limitations). However, organized
sports are not recommended until
after kindergarten.
School Age
5-8 Years
References
Copple, C., & S. Bredekamp, eds.
2009. Developmentally
Appropriate Practice in Early
Childhood Programs Serving
Children from Birth Through
Age 8. 3rd ed. Washington, DC:
NAEYC.
Kaplan, P.S. (2000). A Child’s
Odyssey: Child & Adolescent
Development. (3 Ed.). Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth.
Marion, M. C. (2012). Guidance of
Caregivers should also help to
advance the fine motor movements
(buttoning, writing) of children in
order to develop their hand
muscles, which are less advanced
than large muscles at this time.
Children should be given both
simple tasks (to increase selfesteem) and tasks that can be
accomplished with some adult
assistance (to learn new skills).
At age 5, children have nearly
twice as many neural
connections as adults. These
communication connections
enable a high capacity for
learning, as the first seven years
of life are a sensitive period for
brain development. Therefore,
during this time it is important
for children to be exposed to
stimulating opportunities in their
environment, be provided with
proper guidance techniques, and
develop a positive self-concept.
As a caregiver, you have the
unique and amazing opportunity
to implement and foster these
qualities in your school age
child.
Young Children.(8 Ed.). Upper
Saddle
River,
New
Jersey:
Prentice Hall.
Sponsored by the UNT Center for Parent Education
Written by Kimberly Pedoto
Emotions
Discipline
Self-Concept
Clear and simple expectations should be set
for school age children due to the fact that
their natural curiosity leads them to
sometimes test limits in exploration. In
order to enforce these expectations,
consistent rules and consequences should be
implemented.
Children are able to learn and
interact best when all of their needs
are met. Food, water, and sleep
are needs, but feeling secure
and valued by caregivers is also
a basic need. Support their efforts
to express their emotions, despite
society’s accepted repression of all
negative emotions and acceptability
of only positive emotions. It’s
helpful to name the child’s
emotions. For example “You must
be really upset, falling down makes
people sad sometimes because they
are hurt and maybe embarrassed.”
Adults should also model proper
emotional control. Young children
view adults as the ultimate authority
and cannot differentiate what an
adult is doing as wrong. Therefore, it
is important to constantly remind
yourself that children are using your
actions as a guideline from which to
plan theirs. Therefore, when adults
are warm and show sensitive concern
for children’s feelings, children are
more likely to react in a concerned
way to the distress of others.
When teaching a school age child about
acceptable behavior, it is important to tell the
child exactly what to do, rather than what not to
do. For example: “Use this tissue to clean your
nose” rather than “don’t pick your nose”.
Rules and consequences should be accompanied
by an explanation. This reasoning will enable
discipline to be successful long-term because the
child will internalize and understand the
discipline, rather than just internalizing “I can’t do
this because Mom said so”. An example of this
reasoning would be “I can’t let you jump out of
this window because when people hit the ground
from so high up, they can get very hurt. How
about we go jump on the trampoline together
instead?”
Self-regulation (being able to control impulses
and not blurt out an answer in class; as well as
being able to stop playing and clean up) is
difficult for children due to the fact that their
brains aren’t fully developed. Therefore we must
be patient in our discipline and guidance.
In addition, proper discipline calls attention
to prosocial behavior and rewards those
behaviors when they occur, rather than
focusing only on undesired behaviors. This
lets the child know that you notice the good
things that they do, affirming their efforts
with positive attention so they do not
feel a need to seek out negative
attention to fulfill their natural need for
acknowledgement.
School age children develop a selfconcept (a way to view themselves) by
internalizing others’ evaluations based on
their interactions with adults and by
comparing themselves with their peers.
Therefore, adults should help to create a
positive self-concept for children by
offering specific praise: “I really like how
you colored that tree with differentcolored green leaves”, rather than
general praise: “Great job! You’re a great
artist”. This generality of praise sends the
message to children that all value is
placed upon the final product and that if
they had not done what you consider to
be a “great job” than they are not a great
artist, but rather a bad one, becoming
overly-reliant on the approval of others.
In addition, school age children have
a natural enthusiasm- don’t
discourage this enthusiasm with
behavior that reveals your annoyance,
but rather meet their engagement
with your own enthusiasm regarding
their school accomplishments,
emerging physical abilities, etc.