(Physical Development) Height and Weight

During early childhood, children begin to notice height and weight more so than in their earlier years. They start loosing the chubby baby look and become taller, leaner, and more muscular. "Girls tend to have more fatty tissue than boys, and boys have more muscle tissue" (Children 251). Some children lack the required hormone to gain height and weight, and this is termed as a 'growth hormone deficiency'. Coming from a family of a 6' father, a 5'11 mother, tallness was in my genes, and it was no surprise that starting in preschool I grew taller than everyone else in my classes, and remained so up until about junior high. My ultimate height was only 5'9, and even at that, I am the 'short' one in my family!

The Brain

When I was younger, I was asked to read and sound out words I had no idea how to say. When I would tell my teacher in the classroom that I didn't know the words, she would make me say the same sentence over and over again in front of the whole class. It was very embarrassing. I was then sent to a class called “Reading Intervention". I was so relieved to be sent to my reading intervention class at 10:30 every morning; the other kids didn’t have to go. I was really frustrated at first. I always wondered why I couldn’t read as well as the other students; how come my brain isn't processing this faster than the others? I realized that as time went on I started reading big words. Some words were so big the other kids didn’t know how to say them. When the teacher would ask me to read in class I wasn’t embarrassed. I had been taught how to focus on the words and then sound them out before I say it, and that helped me a lot.

Researchers found that from 3 to 6 years of age, the most rapid growth takes place in the frontal lobe areas involved in planning and organizing new actions, and in maintaining attention to tasks. They have discovered that from age 6 through puberty, the most growth takes place in the temporal and parietal lobes, especially areas that play major roles in language and spatial relations.Children Tenth Edition pg. 253

Vision

When I was in preschool, I had a very good buddy who lived relatively close, and we played together about once a week. On one of our play dates, I went to her house, and she was wearing a patch over her right eye. I asked her what it was, and she told me she called it her pirate patch, and it made her eye work better. I later asked my mom if I could have a pirate patch too, and she explained to me that my friend needed the patch because she had a "lazy eye" which meant that one of her eyes was a little weaker than the other. When the patch covered her good eye, it made her weaker eye work harder.

Functional Amblyopia or "lazy eye" is one type of vision problem that presents itself in early childhood, and it is treatable if "detected prior to age 6" (Children 254). Lazy eye occurs when one eye works harder than the other to avoid double vision. Often times one eye's muscles are stronger than another, and it will compensate. Treatments could include wearing a patch, glasses, or doing eye exercises. Strabismus is another type of vision problem and it refers to a misalignment of the eyes. Crossed eyes are one example. This is treated with eye exercises which train the eyes to be straight, or with contacts.

Gross and Fine Motor Skills

As most know, children between the ages of 2-6 have, it would seem, a limitless amount of energy, and have every intention of using it to the fullest extent. This includes practicing all the new skills they have acquired including riding a tricycle, running, jumping, kicking and catching a ball, skipping, climbing up and down playground equipment, and chasing one another around in circles. These are all examples of gross motor skills, and children have a marvelous time practicing them all. Fine motor skills include cutting with scissors, building a tower with blocks, pasting, tracing objects, letters, or numbers, and coloring or painting. The Denver Developmental Screening Test can find out if a child is effectively able accomplish gross and fine motor skill tasks. To expand my gross motor skills, I was enrolled in ballet at the age of 4, and although it took a few years to remember the sequence of steps, I loved practicing.

Young Children's Artistic Drawings

Children's artistic abilities increase during these young years. "The unintended irregularities of children's drawings suggest spontaneity, freedom and directness" (Children 258). There are four stages which children progress through and they are: 1. placement, which depicts scribbles but within a small area, 2. shape, showing different diagrams of shapes, 3. design, which mixes two shapes in one design, and 4. pictorial, depicting recognizable images. Our son, age 3 1/2, currently enjoys drawing circles, and although they may look more like an amoeba than an actual circle, he has me convinced that they are indeed, circles. Based on the information, he would be placed in the shape stage.

Handedness

My husband would tell you that he is the 'only one in his right brain' because he is left handed. He would also tell you that 'most people are born right handed, and only the gifted overcome it.' : ) At the first ultrasound we had of our precious boy, he was sucking his fingers with his left hand, and my husband was so excited! It turns out, now at 3 1/2 our little boy does indeed favor his left hand. He eats with it, reaches for things with it, and colors with it. So our little boy will join my husband, and other great men such as "Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Picasso" who were also left-handers (Children 260). Hand preference can appear as early as in the womb, like in the example of our son, but isn't usually noticed by adults until the early childhood years. The textbook mentions that infants seem to prefer a side to sleep on, or turn their head towards, which often turns into their dominant side.

Sleep and Sleep Problems

Nightmares, night terrors, sleep talking, and somnambulism or sleep walking are all common sleep problems that occur in early childhood. Most children outgrow these sleep problems, but in instances such as sleep walking, parents should try to make the home as safe as possible, and consult a physician for treatment options. Contrary to popular belief it is absolutely safe and sometimes necessary to walk a sleep-walking child. When I was younger I used to have horrible nightmares. I would wake up in the middle of night screaming, and my poor parents would try to do everything they could to calm me down. In addition, I also talked quite coherently in my sleep, and often times I would have entire conversations, without even waking up. I wish I could say I grew out of them both, but I'll admit I still talk in my sleep, a fact which my husband likes to lovingly tease me about.

Nutrition, Health, Safety, and Illness

My mother did an excellent job of providing healthy, nutritious meals every single day. She was diligent in making sure we had sources of protein, grains, a vegetable, and fruit. Much to my brother's and my dismay, she refused to buy us sugary cereal, stating that it wasn't good for our bodies to have so much sugar. Thanks to her persistence in providing us with healthy meals, she raised two children who now are teaching the same important concepts to their children. One of the major concerns in young children is childhood obesity. The fat and sugar intake has increased so dramatically based on such busy lifestyles, however "diets should be well balanced and should include fats, carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, and minerals" (Children 263).

In addition to healthy meals, my parents did everything in their power to keep us safe in our home. They didn't smoke, didn't keep a gun in the house, and kept us both in the backseat of the car far longer than they needed to. Although no parent can monitor their child 24/7, those were just a few steps that helped keep us safe, and are still applicable today.

(Cognitive Development) Piaget's Pre-operational Stage and Vygotsky's Theory

The pre-operational stage is Piaget's second theory. It lasts from approximately 2 to 7 years of age. In this stage, children look at the world with words, images, and drawings. This world is also dominated by imagination. This stage is different because before children could only do things physically, and now they do things mentally. This stage can be divided into two different substages. These stages are symbolic functions and intuitive thought stages. When I was a child I would use my imagination when I would "play school" by myself and I would act like I was talking to a classroom of students. Vygotskys Theory is like Piagets but Vygotsky's is a social structivist approach, which emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction. Our focus shifts from individual to collaboration, social interaction, and sociocultural activity with Vygotskys theory. Children construct knowledge through social interaction, for Vygotsky. This remindes me when I was a child and I started talking more with other children. I was more independent on my own and able to talk to other kids rather then just my sisters and brothers. Also my imagination "playing school" wasn't that important to me anymore because I started playing with other children.

Information Processing

The information processing approach has generated research that illuminates how children process information during the preschool years. Attention, memory, strategies and problem solving are all very important in the information processing for children. Attention is defined as the focusing of cognitive resources. Families were observed through America to see how a toddler, compared to younger or older children, didn't spend as much time watching television. When I was a toddler I remember not being able to focus for long periods of time on one object or event. Although preschool age children don't focus on certain things, their control of attention is still deficient. For example, if a child is given a direction by a clown in a bright colored outfit, the child would pay more attention to the clown than the directions. This reminds me of when I was a child and I had a child's learning game that I played on the computer. I was more concerned about the colors and different objects on the game then I was of learning how to do what it was trying to teach me.

Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics

Preschool children become more sensitive to the sounds of people voices and are able to speak all sounds of their language. They notice rhymes, enjoy poems, make up silly names for things, and clap along with each syllable in a phrase. This reminds me of when I made up a name for my older sister. I would call her Brandi Andy. Young children show a growing mastery of complex rules for how words should be ordered. Syntax involves the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences. Gains in semantics also characterizes early childhood. Semantics refers to the meanings of words and sentences. Between 18 months and 6 years of age, young children learn about one new word every hour. It is estimated that by the first grade, children know about 14,000 words.

Advances in Pragmatics

Pragmatics involves the appropriate use of language in different context. It includes conversational skills. As children get older they are more able to talk about things that are not here. For example, being at the babysitter's house rather than what they are going to do tomorrow, or the next day. At the preschool I work at kids can tell you what they want for lunch, if they like chocolate milk or not, as opposed to when they were younger, and used the two-word stage in language development. Children around the age of 4 use the word the a lot to describe previously mentioned things. Adults use the words an or a. 4 year olds also change their language a lot when talking to younger children. For example, they talk softer and sweeter to those younger then they would to the same aged children. " The advances in early childhood lay the foundation for later development in the elementary school years." (p.294) I remember when I was a young child, even thought my nieces and nephew were not too far in age from me, I would talk to them like they were babies. I would think that I was much older then them and had more control. When I would speak to adults, it was totally different. I looked up to the adult and had absolutely no control.

Variations, Literacy, and Controversies

The foundation for early childhood education has been the child centered kindergarten. This is exactly what it says. For example it is like plants and their garden. To help plants grow, they need to be nurtured. Same for children. In order for them to grow and learn their teachers need to nurture them and help them with this process. It is sad when I say, I don't feel like many teachers remember this. Also, developmentally appropriate practice is another part of the foundation. This is based on knowledge of the typical development of children within an age span, the uniqueness of a child, and sociocultural contexts. Reading and writing became a big concern in the U.S. and that is why they led to a careful examination of preschool and kindergarten and the child's experiences there. In early childhood teachers concentrate more on reading then they do on math. Young children especially benefit when they can explore and manipulate mathematical ideas while they are engaging in play. Controversies in early childhood is a big deal. The controversies are: curriculum, does preschool really matter, should there be universal preschool education, and school readiness.

Educating Young Children Who Are Disadvantaged

Children that come from low income homes usually did not receive any education before they entered the first grade. Therefore, they started the first grade a few steps behind those who received preschool. In 1965, people started programs to help those low income families be able to afford preschool for their children. They took donations and only ran off of the state. Parents with low income didn't have to pay for anything in order for their child to get the education they deserved to be ready to learn in first grade. People were worried that these programs didn't qualify the learning process. They thought that these schools were a lower quality school for those that couldn't afford anything better. Of course these people were wrong. All the teachers working at these program sites were permit holding teachers. These teachers attended the same schooling and qualifications as those teachers at the preschools that make you pay. Evidence indicates that well designed and well implemented early childhood education programs are successful with low income children.

(Socioemotional Development) The Self

When I was a little girl of about five years of age I formed my own theory about feelings. I began to understand that I myself felt a certain way and it made me think that others could feel this way also. However, I thought that if I felt a certain way then the person would feel exactly as I did in that situation. In my mind there was only one way to feel about a situation because that was the way that I felt.

I loved my older brother and spent a lot of time with him. Over the summer when we were little he would ask me to stay up late and watch cartoons with him. After a little while I really wanted to sleep in my own bed in my room, and at the time I shared a room with my older sister. I hated sleeping alone. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that my brother also probably hated sleeping alone and this was why he wanted me to watch cartoons. This was not what my brother thought, but to me it had to be. I tried very hard to get him to sleep in my room so that he would not be alone. After awhile, I got really upset that he would not come so that he would not be alone. My mother finally talked to me and explained that he was fine sleeping alone. She told me that he just wanted to spend time with me. This took me a long time to understand, but I finally got it. Other people can feel different then you in the same situation.

The book states, “Individual differences characterize young children’s social understandings. Some young children are better than others at understanding what people are feeling and what they desire…” (Children 314). At first most young children will describe themselves in physical matters. The differences that they have with others are that they are taller or shorter. Later they begin to understand emotions as well.

Emotional Development

I grew up as an only child. I was raised by my grandparents. I always had the attention I needed and I feel more like I was sheltered by them, because I could never do anything on my own. If I had been raised by my mom I think I would have been more ready for the world than I am today. I was diagnosis with attention deviance hyper activity disorder when I was in the second grade, and I really don't remember much about my childhood emotional development. The emotional development in early childhood includes self-conscious emotions where children are able to recognize both themselves and that they are distinctly different from others. Young children also are better able to express what they are feeling, and manage their emotion, to some extent.

Moral Development

When I was a child, I remember how the rules were unchangeable. They were laws passed down from our parents and could not be changed. My cousins and I were playing around in a room and one of them accidentally cursed. She was trying to say two different words, but it came out in a different word than she intended. We both looked at her in shock because she said something she was not supposed to. We knew that she broke a rule and she was going to get in trouble. In panic, she quickly told us it was an accident, but we did not listen. She said a bad word and even though it was an accident, she was going to get in trouble.

In the text, on page 317, there are two forms of justice that children believe in. They are heteronomous and autonomous morality. Between ages 4-7, children show heteronomous morality and believe that justice is unchangeable and out of control of the people. They also believe that justice is immanent, or that it will be carried out immediately. Between ages 7-10, they are in a transition between the two forms. Finally, ages 7 and up, they show autonomous morality and are aware that actions are judged by people, who also make laws. They are also aware that justice is not immanent, and not inevitable.

Gender

As a child, I was the a mix between a girly girl, and a tom boy. I loved dressing up in pretty clothes, being nice and clean, and playing with my barbies and baby dolls, but I also loved playing outside, swimming in the lake we lived on, and building mud forts at the shore of the water. There are so many different influences on the gender of a child, and they include: biological influences, referring to the actual genetic prototype that a boy or girl has, social influences, referring to parents and peers, and cognitive influences, referring to what children see and want to imitate.

Parenting

The text describes four methods of parenting. According to Baumrind, they are authoritarian, authoritative, neglectful, and indulgent.

Authoritarian- A Restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to follow their directions and to respect work and effort. It places firm limits and controls on children and allows little verbal exchange and is associated with children's social incompetence.
Authoritative- A parenting style in which parents encourage their children to be independent but still place limits and controls on their actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturing toward the child. It is also associated with children's social competence.
Neglectful- A style of parenting in which the parent is very uninvolved in the child's life; it is associated with children's social incompetence, especially a lack of self-control.
Indulgent- is a style in which parents are highly involved with their children but place few demands or controls on them. They let their children do what they want and results with children unable to control their behavior.

While growing up, I was raised with Authoritative method. I had a freedoms and responsibilities. When I did something wrong, I also suffered consequences for the choices I made. I have also seen other forms of parenting and was glad my parents raised me the way they did. Seeing the results of neglectful or indulgent parenting made me appreciative of my family.

Child Maltreatment

I don't believe in hitting a child. I would rather sit down with them and explain to them what they did wrong. Kids are smart. They are like sponges, and they adsorb everything. I have seen this first hand with my brothers two little girls. Their ages are 3 years old and 22 months old. If it is bad enough that they need to be spanked, the only place I would do that at is on their little bottom.

Sibling Relationships and Birth Order

I remember growing up that my brothers loved to tease my sisters. This is actually something that my siblings and I laugh about now that we are older. The book states, "When siblings are in the presence of each other when they are 2 to 4 years of age, on average they have a conflict once every 10 minutes and then the conflicts go down somewhat from 5 to 7 years" (332). Children are focused on their own needs when they are at a younger age and when they do not have to toy that they will fight with their siblings. Parents can help with conflicts by intervening, threatening, and leave it alone. Siblings have a relationship that is characterized by both rivalry and positive interchanges. Siblings can learn a lot from each other that they can not learn from their parents. I learned a lot and gained some self confidence with my siblings. My sisters helped me do my hair and my brothers would play sports games with me. I remember my siblings and I would fight over who got to sit in the front set. My parents made a rule to try and make things fair. They made the rule that the oldest sat in the front. Being the youngest I never sat in the front, but it made me learn how to share. I think that being the oldest, youngest or only child changes the way that a child grows up. I think that children learn from their experiences in their placements in their family.

The Changing Family in A Changing Society

I currently live in a family were both parents work. When I was younger my mom did stay home with us, but before I was in middle school she went back to work. Being the youngest of six it is hard to live off of one income. "Although, overall no detrimental effects on children's development are found when both parents work, depending on the circumstances, work can produce positive or negative effects" (334). In the past most of the parents would have to split up their time amongst the children they had because most parents were having more kids. However, it appears that now people are not having as large of family and parents attention is now only focused on one or two children.

Peer Relations

“As children grow older, they spend an increasing amount of time with their peers—children of about the same age or maturity level” (Children 341). Children want the acceptance of their peers and therefore peers have a great influence. When I was really little I did not like to brush my hair or did not care what I looked like. I did not really think about what it would be like to be accepted by my peers. I just wanted to play and have fun. Later as I got older I became more aware of children’s acceptance and fitting in. This increased my getting ready time by hours instead of minutes. The book states, “Good peer relations can be necessary for normal social development” (Children 341). The children that are a little more reserved and do not try to socialize are the ones that you need to worry about. Socializing and feeling accepted by peers is important for the growth and development of young children.

Play

When I was child I liked to play by myself because kids liked to make fun of me because of the way I looked, and because of my weight, so I always would just play with my dogs. I wish I could have had more friends growing up, but that's okay. I have a lot of friends now, but sometimes I wish that they where around when I was growing up. Mildred Parten divided play into different categories which are: unoccupied play, solitary play, onlooker play, parallel play, associative play, and cooperative play. Based on my childhood experiences I fell into the solitary category.

Television

Television has several effects on children if left unsupervised or unmonitored. If children watch too much television for too long, they can be influenced by violence or reduce the amount of time spent elsewhere. In the text, it states "in addition to television violence, there is increased concern about children who play violent video games" (Children 345). As a child, I spent a great deal of time on the television and playing video games. While doing this, my grades in school dropped and other activities decreased as well. When I hung out with my friends, we played with toy guns or played other games. My mother noticed this and made sure I decreased my viewing of television and video games. My grades improved and I did other, more beneficial activities.

The End

Thanks to all for visiting, and we hope you all learned something wonderful about the early childhood years. Just to site our source, we quoted text from the book Children, Tenth Edition by John W. Santrock.