It is an important phase for both child and parent when the child goes to school for the first time at around five years of age. If children had positive social experiences during their preschool years, they will now have a good foundation for forming good relationships with others. This will serve them well right through their childhood and beyond. Other adults including teachers, relatives and friends parents, all carry influence in a child’s life.
As the child’s reasoning centres are developing, they will have the joy of learning new skills such as reading. At this stage, in terms of emotional development, children will now be able to use cognitive skills to comfort themselves. They will be able to take a time-out to process, then express, their emotions. For example: “I felt sad when Mary wouldn’t play with me at lunchtime.”. This is a critical advance in terms of the ongoing development of a child’s emotional maturity.
The ability to express “difficult” emotions in a way that another can hear during a time of conflict is a skill that many adults do not have. Sometimes adults who struggle with emotional skills to instead react (that is, go into fight-or-flight mode) when under emotional pressure. This can create a lot of stress and disconnection within relationships at home or in the workplace, so it is useful crafting these skills at age-appropriate stages, if possible.
When your child is nurtured in a loving home environment, it helps them feel secure in engaging in co-operative play. For example, “I’ll get the plates and you can bring the cups.”. This is the beginning of learning to work together in teams and fosters an environment of mutual respect. At this stage, group friendships are important, as the child’s awareness and circle of friends is increasing.
The child’s developing cognitive skills at this stage help them in not only feeling empathy, but expressing it too. “You’ve fallen over! Let me help you up.”. Building cognition helps them to learn how to negotiate, starting between the ages of five and eight. For example, “if you be the mummy, I’ll be the baby in this game and then we can swap.” As children are just learning these skills, often they still need help and guidance.
This five-to-eight-year-old period is a wonderful time to watch and encourage your child as they begin to learn new skills, like reading and experiencing the world in a cognitive way, adding to their emotional skills. This is not a time to push them into high-performance academic success. Pushing children too hard can be detrimental; when the level of exposure to learning becomes extreme, stress hormones are released that actually destroy nerve cells (The Riggs Institute).
Instead of driving your child academically, support and allow them to feel the joy of learning new skills. Our job as parents is to inspire our children to be the best they can be! Joyful children grow up to be joyful adults.
