Your 5 Year Old Child

Your 5 year old child is ready for school or has already started. I have been amazed at how important this milestone can be for the child and the whole family.

It sets the stage for such topics as separation from parents, being away from home, interacting with social groups, peers, and teachers, and developing interests and activities to satisfy individual needs and goals in contrast to those of the family unit and those roles attributable to the family position of your child.

Up until this point, your child has seen him or herself as primarily an important member of your family.

Now their outlook expands to include their peer group, their school and community, and the broader concept of society and the public sphere of influence starts to make its prominence known.

For some kids, this can be exciting and stimulating, while for others it may be scary and daunting.

You must key into how your child is reacting and responding, and make adjustments accordingly. Every 5 year old child is different, as is every family and school and community.

I recommend tailoring your strategy as close to your child's tolerance and preferences as possible.

This is not that hard to do, especially when all family members, teachers and others are on the same page.

Next I want to explore the energetics of the five year old age group and the likely priorities that are included.

Your 5 year old child is more than likely working on the following tasks and showing great progress.

The rate of accomplishment varies, but the overall strategy and input should be focusing on these developmental categories from a verbal and motor skills standpoint.

At 5 years old, the emphasis from an energy perspective is much more likely to gravitate toward mental, emotional and cognitive processes rather than physical ones.

The energy expenditure profile shows this below and this should be taken into account when evaluating your child's developmental progress.

As you can see, by 5 years old the energy expenditure distribution allows much more for independence, social skills and growth and development versus previous age ranges.

When we see delays in these areas, there is a way to determine where and why this has occurred. By using an energy based approach, it is much easier to define and postulate the likely causes.

For example, if a child who is 5 years old is still having some trouble with potty training, this suggests an energy distribution pattern that is not moving forward and graduating to the age appropriate settings for that child.

Now we can ascertain what may have caused this by exploring what other energy expenditures may have taken priority over this function of learning how to use the bathroom.

One possible cause might be dealing with school and the changes associated with being away from home.

Another might be moving to a new house and having trouble adjusting.

Yet another might be a father in the military who is called to active duty and the disruption this has on the whole family.

These possible scenarios can all influence the child, but the important factor is determining where they rank on the child's priority list and how they affect the energy expenditure pattern.

This gives us a format and foundation to work with and it enables us to decipher the energy pattern at work in the 5 year old child.

From this perspective, approaches can be implemented that make sense and have a chance of succeeding with the cooperation of parents and all those participating in the child's care.

This energy approach has worked well for me as I counsel parents in my practice.

I want to relate this concept to you in more ways than one, so that you can incorporate this idea into your every day strategies to help your child develop, grow and succeed.

ADD TO YOUR SOCIAL BOOKMARKS: Blink Del.icio.us Digg
Furl Google Simpy Spurl Technorati Y! MyWeb