Chapter 18- Providing for the Preschooler’s Developmental Needs

You are what you eat

Growth slows during the preschool years.

In preschool years, height increases about seven inches, and weight increases about 13 pounds.

Other body systems must keep pace with skeletal growth.

If diet does not meet the body’s needs, the body may conserve fuel needed for its own upkeep. This may slow the rate of growth.

Nutritious foods are needed for brain growth, too. General alertness is affected by a person’s daily diet.

Basic Food Choices

Parents may vary their child’s diet to suit the child’s growth rate, which varies from month to month.

They should also consider the child’s energy levels, health, and food preferences.

Children should eat snacks that provide nutrients as well as calories. Experts say preschool children as well as adults should lesson their intake of sugar salt, and fats.

Consuming too much fat and salt early in life may increase chances of high blood pressure in later years.

Food attitudes are learned

The food attitudes preschoolers learn may last a lifetime. Offering a variety of foods in a pleasant atmosphere helps preschoolers form good food attitudes.

Children should be able to eat foods they like and still meet their nutritional needs. Forcing children to eat foods they don’t like can cause them to have negative feelings toward healthy foods.

Using food to reward or punish can also have a bad effect. They may learn to eat as a way of bribery.

Preventing Eating Problems

Adults can prevent some eating problems in preschool children.

Adults need to know that children and adults have different senses of taste and smell.

Children are also influenced by other food tastes and qualities:

A) Food that looks good

B) Separate rather than combination foods.

C) Foods served at acceptable temperatures

D) Foods prepared in different ways

E) New Foods in Small Amounts

F) Easy-to Eat foods

Read:423-424 Summarize A-F for your notes

Making Meals Fun

Children enjoy helping to prepare food.

By helping, children learn about colours, shapes, tastes, aromas, textures, and appliance names.

They learn food preparation terms and food names.

Cooking teaches math and science concepts.

As an added bonus, children often eat what they help prepare.

Meals should be a time to relax, share, and have fun.

Clothing: Fabric and Construction Features

Preschool children grow mainly in the length of the arms and legs and the width of the shoulders.

For these reasons their clothes should have the following growth features:

A) Wide hems that can be let out as arms and legs grow

B)Kimono or raglan sleeves that allow for increase in the width of the shoulders.

C)Adjustable shoulder straps and waistbands that allow for both length and width increases.

Self-Dressing Features

Chart 18-9 Copy or photograph.

1) Large openings, especially for slipover garments

2)Easy-to-recognize fronts and backs of garments

3)Front rather than back openings, such as front buttons and attached belts that hook in the front.

4)Elastic in waistbands and in sleeves.

Clothes and Self-Concept

Clothes are one way to express their personality.

Preschool children should make some choices about their clothes. Perhaps they can choose the colour they want from similar outfits.

If the outfit is to be sewn, a child could choose between two pattern views or among a few trims.

Not only will children enjoy clothes they have chosen, but they also learn to make decisions.

Handling Sleep and Toileting Problems

Sleep needs are individual.

Most children during the preschool years have given up daytime naps.

They still need 10 or more hours of sleep at night.

Toileting accidents occur once in a while with a most preschool children.

Daytime accidents are often caused by waiting too long. Adults need to remind the children to go to the bathroom.

Any instance of involuntary urination of a child over three years is called enuresis.

Sometimes people use the term to apply to bed-wetting when the child no longer has daytime accidents.

There may be many causes of bedtime accidents in the late preschool years. They may be caused by fear of getting up in the dark, and too much liquid before bedtime.

Responses Page 455- Thinking Further: Question 1 & 2

Intellectual Needs

In Groups you will presenting the following concepts in short 2-3 minute presentations:

1. Learning Through Observing

2. Learning Through Problem Solving

3. Learning Through Symbolizing

4. Learning Through Motor Skills

5. Learning Through Language

Discipline: Rules

Preschool children should be given reasonable limits.

They need limits for safety purposes and to prepare them for the real world.

These rules should be spelled out.

When children fail to obey, they need to be disciplined in a loving, yet firm, way.

Honest Communication

Parents and other adults need to communicate honestly when guiding and disciplining children.

Being honest helps children build trusting relationships.

Children need to be aware that adults, too, make mistakes.

Sharing Responsibility

The following suggestions will help children share responsibility:

A) Children must suggest tasks but adults must decide which tasks are safe.

B) Physical conditions should help children perform tasks. Ex: Low hooks or clothes rods

C)Adults can talk about tasks planned for the day, and they can tell children what they should do.

D)Adults should not expect perfection.

E) Adults can make some tasks seem more fun by creating a game. Ex: blocks can be hauled off to the “lumberyard.”

F) At times, adults should respect children’s priorities.

Providing Time for Friendships

Living in a social world involves balancing between self-assertion and cooperation.

Seeing differences in people helps children learn to see from another’s point of view. The process begins in the infant and toddler years.

In peer groups, children also witness altruistic behaviour (concern for others). This helps children learn that others are important, too.

Reducing Conflicts

Adults can reduce the conflicts of preschoolers in these ways:

A) Teach children they do not always have to share, any more than adults do.

B) Model concern for the hurt child rather than shaming the one who has done wrong.

C) Explain feelings of both children wanting the same toy or wanting to do the same thing.

Dependency

Knowing when and how to help preschoolers can be difficult.

Some children are unable to handle some tasks on their own but do not want the help adults offer.

Other children, however, will not let go of help from adults, even when they do not need it. These preschool children need to become more independent.

Adults can help by loving and respecting children. This gives children a secure base from which to try things on their own. When children ask for help, adults should be willing to help.

Adults need to judge how much help children need.

Fear and Anxiety

The following ideas may help children’s fears and anxieties in check:

A)Accept the expressed fears and anxieties of children.

B) Assure children you will help keep them safe.

C) Model courage. Children learn fears from adults.

D) Handle one fear at a time. Repeat reasons children need not be afraid.

E) Consult a doctor if fears seem too prolonged or too intense.

Anger and Aggression

Adults should note the difference in anger (a feeling caused by frustration) and aggression (an attempt to hurt or an act of hurting someone).

They should not try to stop anger in children. Instead, they need to help children try to manage anger in ways other than aggression.

Look for reasons the child feels angry: Does the child want attention? Is he or she frustrated in reaching a goal? Is he or she looking for revenge?

Understanding motives makes finding ways to manage anger easier.

Questions Thinking Further: Question #3

Preschooler Review Sheet