What are the Developmental Characteristics of a 3-Year-Old Child?

Development of a 3-Year-Old Child
Your baby, who you can't get enough of looking at, who is so innocent and defenseless, continues to grow day by day. The effect of even a small act on our sweet and beautiful children, who seem to be playing games, affects their whole life like a rolling snowball. For this reason, it is very important to determine and pay attention to parental attitudes by being aware of the competencies and needs of the child at every stage of development. In this article, let's take a look at the 3rd year of the parenting adventure, every moment of which is unique and challenging.


What is the Development of a 3-Year-Old Child?
As parents, one of the most important issues that we should pay attention to when determining our behaviors is the physical, psychological and cognitive competencies of our children in their life periods. It is a very wrong attitude to expect them to use skills that they do not have yet due to their age. So we'll first take a look at how a three-year-old child develops.

Independence efforts, which started to be seen in two-year-old children, continue in this age group as well.  For this reason, they may want to do many things on their own during the day, they may become angry and stubborn even in the face of a small intervention.
Children in the age group of three cannot yet fully express their feelings and thoughts verbally. This situation turns them into extreme anger, crying and tantrums. Children around this age try to speak as fast as they think, they cannot properly adjust the connection between their thoughts and their speaking ability. For this reason, you may encounter frequent stuttering. This is quite normal. Because while the child is trying to talk, he is trying to struggle with his overly curious and never-ending thoughts.

Before talking about the physical characteristics of the three age groups, it is useful to make a reminder. Every child is unique, both physically and cognitively. The traits carried in the genes transmitted by the mother and father are quite different from each other. During the development of each child, characteristics such as height, weight, speaking ability, physical skills, likes and dislikes, age at which he walks, ability to hold a pencil can be quite different. Therefore, if there is no big difference between the characteristics of the mentioned age groups and the level your child has, do not worry. Because, even if certain standards are set, the development of each child progresses in a special way. Now let's come to the physical properties. The average weight of a girl who has reached the age of three is around 14 kg,Its length is about 95 cm. Boys are on average 15 kg and their height is 95.3 cm.

The most important point during the nutrition of the three-year-old child is that he consumes foods from the protein, cereal and vegetable group at every meal.  In addition, for children who love to eat chocolate and sugary foods, consuming natural sugar source fruits in snacks will be a healthier choice. In particular, you can use sugar-like foods such as dried strawberries, dried apples and dried kiwis. You can also use sugar-free and healthy foods such as tahini molasses, peanut butter and hazelnut paste instead of chocolate. Also, do not forget to make your own juices at home. Remember that the later your children are introduced to ready-to-eat foods, the better it will be for their health.

Let's talk about the cognitive development of the three-year-old. The speaking skills of children in this age group continue to develop rapidly. Naturally, these minds, who are quite curious and open to learning, can ask so many questions that they bore their parents. ”, “Why are the clouds white?”, “Why do we have two hands? In this way, they can now also compare the shape and color of two objects. In addition, you can see that they play pretend games with much more creative scenarios thanks to their imagination, which increases rapidly with the age of three. At this time, they may begin to experience fears that did not exist before. This is due to their intense imagination.For example, they may think that there is a monster hiding under their bed or that an evil cartoon character is trying to catch them in their house.

Now your child will begin to perceive time better. The concepts of morning, noon and evening are now clearer. Gradually, they can start counting single-digit numbers. But they can only realize these skills in a concrete way. In other words, they only have the ability to count the objects placed in front of them. They can start playing the pazıl, which is prepared according to their age. When choosing a toy for your child, do not forget to make choices for which his skills will be sufficient. Toys that require skills over their age will negatively affect your child's psychology.


What Should Parental Attitudes Be to a 3-Year-Old Child?
The most common behavior in children aged three years is tantrums. Although the children in this group gradually learned to do things on their own, their physical skills did not reach a sufficient level. In addition, three-year-old children who have started to form sentences still do not have the ability to verbally express their feelings and thoughts. Both physical and verbal limitations cause tantrums by making children extremely angry when they do not do what they want to do and cannot express what they want to express. In addition, they may want to express themselves by shouting, crying or throwing themselves when they cannot verbally express their situation such as boredom, tiredness or hunger.All of these are quite normal behaviors for the three age group and your attitude towards these behaviors is very important.

The wrong reactions you give during tantrums may cause your child to reinforce this behavior and continue in later years. The most common wrong method is to reward your child unknowingly, such as letting the child stop yelling and crying, like chocolate or a new toy, or letting him watch a video on the phone that he likes to do. In addition, it will not be the right method to get angry and shout at a child who is having a tantrum. Do not forget that the situation that causes these seizures is that the child cannot do something he wants to do or cannot tell something he wants to say. Therefore, if you want to cope with tantrums, what you need to do is to show your child that you understand him and guide him to explain himself. Understanding their feelings by doing emotional activities with our child,You can teach them to distinguish and express verbally.

 aware that you are angry right now, but it is not appropriate to throw our things." Also, do not forget to offer a different alternative to distract the child, In this way, the child will realize that he is understood and accepted by his parents, and he will understand that the wrong thing is his behavior.
If the reactions given and the limitations imposed on the child's disapproved behaviors give the message that you do not approve of the child's self, this will cause the child's self-esteem to be damaged. On the other hand, it can also cause the behavior that you do not approve to continue by being stubborn. For example, when your child exhibits a behavior that you do not approve of, when you use an expression such as "You are a very bad child", this is a reaction to the child's self, not the wrong behavior of the child. As a result, the child may not even realize that the wrong thing is his behavior. For this reason, in your reactions to disapproved behaviors, you should explain that you understand your child, but that you do not only approve of the behavior he / she has done. It is also of great importance that you explain to your child why you do not approve of the behavior that you see as wrong.

We need to be consistent with the rules and limitations you set for your child. Violating a rule or removing limits in certain situations will cause inconsistency in the child. For example, if you allow a video that you allow to watch once a day to watch more because there are guests in the house, such a situation will demand more violations. Also, do not forget to explain the reason for every rule and limitation you have set in a language that the child can understand. It's also important to remain consistent if the child cries a lot and overreacts to a rule or restriction. Otherwise, the child will learn that he can get what he wants by crying and shouting in any situation he does not want, and he will repeat this behavior constantly.

Especially in the first six years, parental attitudes have a great impact on children. A wrong behavior exhibited by the parent causes the child to experience a wrong learning and can affect his whole life. For this reason, you should closely familiarize yourself with the period your child is in by doing detailed research at each developmental stage. Do not forget that you are the parents who prepare your children for real life in their warm home where they are protected from all dangers.

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