This document summarizes key aspects of child development between the ages of 2-5 years. It discusses the neurophysiological development occurring in children's brains during this time. It also outlines the growth of children's cognitive skills, motivation, self-awareness and emotional regulation. Parenting styles that best support children's development are described, including authoritative parenting and scaffolding techniques. Strategies for addressing common behavioral issues in preschoolers like aggression, impulsivity and lying are provided.

1. CFD 250
Parenting in Contemporary Society
Missouri State University
Springfield, Missouri
Kim Sutton, M.Ed.

2. Parenting
2-5 Years
Chapter 8

3. Neurophysiological Development
 Children’s brains are active and primed for
learning
 Compared to adult brains, children’s
brains:
 Have twice as many synapses
(connections among brain cells)
 Are 2 ½ times more active and requires
more glucose
 Have more neurotransmitters that
facilitate transmission of information
from one cell to another
3

4. Children’s Growing Cognitive Skills
 Children’s thinking becomes more complex with increased attention
span and memory
 Children reason about what they observe
 Identifying reliable authorities; deciding on fair rules; asking questions until
they get answers
 Children also reason about people’s feelings
 What causes them; ways to handle fears
4

5. Mastery Motivation
 Some children have strong desires to investigate objects and
problems and achieve mastery
 Children high in this quality persist with challenging tasks and take
pride in solving problems, learn more in preschool
 Parents’ warmth, encouragement, and openness in conversations
promote mastery orientation
5

6. Self-Evaluative Emotions Develop
 Emotions of pride, shame, and embarrassment
 At the end of age 5, the emotion of guilt develops
 Children are very self-conscious; concerned about others’ reactions to
their behaviors and judgments; have strong desire to meet standards
 For example, in a lab experiment in which their judgement of the size of
an object differed from the group:
 Children abandoned their own accurate judgement and agreed with the
inaccurate group judgement; but only if it was public
 When the judgment was given privately, they maintained their own opinion
6

7. Two Orientations to Their Performance
Global Performance
Orientation
 Children believe their success or
failure reflects their value as a
person
 Feel great when they succeed and
bad when they fail
 Avoid tasks when they fail, say they
are no good at it
Specific Learning
Orientation
 Children look at success or failure
as a specific event and not as a
reflection of them as a person
 Feel they may need more practice
 Confident and willing to learn; they
believe they will improve
 Children learn more in preschool
with this orientation
7

8. Sense of Self
 Children are beginning to organize self-perceptions, and tend to have
global view of themselves as all good or all bad
 Most children see themselves as all good
 Children who have been abused are more likely to see themselves as
all bad
 Children seem to internalize parents’ feelings, either positive or
negative, not only about themselves but about others as well
8

9. Parents’ Feelings about Others Shape
Children’s Self Perceptions
 When mothers are cold and angry in interactions with children and
children see parents in conflict:
 Children feel others do not like them
 Preschool children’s self-perceptions predict kindergarten teachers’
ratings of children as:
 Angry, sad, withdrawn, and unable to get along with others
9

10. Parents’ Feelings about Their Parents
Influence Children’s Feelings
 Parents who report anger and little love for their own
parents are:
 Less supportive of marital partners
 Critical and authoritarian with their children
 Sons and daughters of angry mothers are more likely to be sad,
depressed, and withdrawn in kindergarten
 Sons and daughters of angry fathers were more likely to be described as
angry and noncompliant in kindergarten
10

11. Parents’ Positive Attitudes Affect
Children’s Self Perceptions
 Parents’ sensitive interactions with children give children a sense of
security and trust in relationships with others
 When parents are warm and accepting
 Children are more likely to think well of themselves and assume others will
like them too
 Contributes to high self-esteem
 Children seem to internalize parents’ views of them
 Positive as well as negative
11

12. Parent’s Socializing Gender
and Ethnic Identity
 Parents not only convey a sense of overall self-worth but also socialize
children’s sense of gender (what is means to be a boy or girl) and a
person of their ethnic culture through:
 Books they read
 Comments they make drawing attention to a person’s gender or race
 Play objects and activities they provide
 Conversations they have
 What children observe in society about the treatment of others has an
impact as well
12

13. Children Construct an Identity
 Children take in information and construct an identity over time that
includes
 Parents’ messages
 Interactions with peers
 Messages and culture at school
13

14. Children’s Views of Rules
 Children make a distinction between
 Moral rules that concern sharing, helping, not fighting or hitting
 Conventional rules like clothes to wear
 Children are more concerned with kindness than with social
conventions
 They believe, like adolescents, that choices of free time, activities, and
clothing are personal choices and under their control
14

15. Parents’ Emphasis on Fairness and
Inclusiveness
 When children are preschoolers, they are sensitive to being members of groups
 Wearing a t-shirt for three weeks, even though it brings no privileges, leads them to think
of themselves as members of a special group
 Children think highly of their own group, “We are the best,” and do not yet think negatively
of other groups
 Parents can use moral rule of fairness and equal treatment of all to encourage
children to include all children in play groups
 Parents can also model favorable regard for all cultural groups in advance of children’s
tendencies to exclude non-group members as they get older
 Parents’ reading to children and/or attending other groups’ cultural events teach
appreciation for all
15

16. Parents’ Play and Conversations
with Children
 Parents’ play with board games and imaginative play help:
 Children’s cognitive development
 Children’s social and emotional skills
 Conversations with children convey important cultural values
and messages that can boost or decrease self-esteem
16

17. Promoting Executive Functions (EF)
 Executive function grows rapidly in these years
 Parents can do the following to encourage EF
 Engage in imaginative play with children, taking different roles, encouraging
their planning
 Engage in interactive games with turn taking and waiting your turn so
children pay attention in fun activities
 Engage in activities with increasing levels of difficulty like puzzles so there
are challenges
 Keep the atmosphere a positive one
17

18. All Interactions Teach Children
 Everything parents do with children
affects children:
 Conveying children’s acceptance and
importance
 Teaching them values of culture with
regard to gender and ethnic identity
 Rules for living
18

19. Important Period for Regulation
 In this period, children:
 Gain greater control of negative feelings and behavior like aggression and
impulsivity
 Attention span, memory, and ability to regulate feelings and behavior
increase as prefrontal cortex develops
 Parents’ help is important to increase children’s self-regulation as it
predicts many positive school behaviors:
 Academic and social skills
19

20. Parenting Typologies
 Diana Baumrind developed parenting typologies on observations of
parent-preschooler interactions
 Baumrind presents a framework for parenting behaviors that
combines:
 Positive attention to child as in attachment theory
 Verbal limit setting of behavioral methods
20

21. 21

22. The Best Parenting Style
Authoritative Parents
 Set limits and high standards for children
 Attend to child’s individuality, needs, and preferences
 Help children reach standards, explaining, reasoning, structuring
activities so children can achieve high standards
 Verbal methods are used for discipline
22

23. 23

24. The Zone of Proximal Developmen
In scaffolding, the parent provides
scaffolds or supports to facilitate the
child’s development
• Adjust task to challenge but not to
overwhelm child
• Problem-solve with child- raise
questions, wonder about possible
options
• Give amount of help needed until
child gains skills, then withdraw help
• Give encouragement to
counterbalance frustration involved
in learning

25. Analogy
Scaffolding is like helping a child
learn to a ride bike
• Give a lot of support in beginning,
maybe using training wheels
• Take wheels off, and provide a
supportive hand at the back of
the bike seat
• When child can balance and
pedal, parent lets go

26. Applying Principles to Children’s
Fearful Behavior
 Genetic contribution to child’s behavior
 Respect children’s feelings; avoid criticism
 Parents encourage change in small steps
 If child is very shy at school, start by inviting friend or relative over to house
to play
 Elicit children’s fears and problem-solve what child might do so child has
strategies to use
 Be a sideline coach as needed; if successful, go to another’s house
 Be child’s advocate (day care, preschool) gain insights from teachers
 Talk with child and develop plans to handle behaviors of concern
26

27. Helping Child Control Aggression
 As study of aggression showed, pp. 245-246, 70% children were low
or very low on physical aggression in the preschool years
 3% were high at age 2 on this dimension and remained high
throughout the childhood period studied until age 9
 A significant group start out moderately high but half decreased in
aggression
27

28. Helping Child Control Aggression cont.
 High levels of aggression had roots in childhood deprivation
beginning at birth and continuing till age 9
 Mothers emotionally stressed because of depression, limited income
 Mothers less sensitive, harsher parents
 Mothers less stimulating
 Anger seemed a protest against a depriving, non-nurturant world
28

29. Helping Child Control Aggression cont.
 Highly aggressive child accumulated problems
 Parent was angry at child’s aggressive behavior
 Preschool teachers and peers found child difficult
 When entered school, had difficulty paying attention, complying with
directions and academic work was below grade level
 By age 9, child had academic, social, peer, teacher, parent problems
 By age 9, child described self as lonely and angry
29

30. Interventions to Help Aggressive
Children
 When mothers and teachers of aggressive preschool children learned
positive parenting principles and replaced criticism and negative
responses to aggressive behaviors with redirection and guidance,
children’s aggressive behaviors declined
 Benefits were seen a year later for children whose mothers attended just half the
sessions
 At end of a year, behavior of 80% of aggressive children fell in the category of
low-risk for conduct problems
 Surrounding child with adults who practiced positive parenting stopped the
negative pathway that the highly aggressive two-year-olds were on
 Including social skills training for aggressive children is very useful
30

31. Helping Under-Controlled Children
 A longitudinal study of impulsivity in the years from 3 to 6 and follow-
up at age twelve reports:
 Importance of self-control for academic, social, and personal success in
elementary school, like other studies documenting its importance in
predicting physical, occupational, and emotional well-being into adulthood
 About 20% of young children have this problem in preschool years and
often related to family stressors, number of stressors was more important
than the specific kind
31

32. Interventions
 Positive parenting that gives children structure, routines, guidance in
an atmosphere of positive feelings helps
 Guiding children verbally through approved actions
 Encouraging self-instruction as Vygotsky recommends are helpful
along with
 Dreikurs’ use of encouragement and his attitude towards mistakes
helps children gain control of their actions
32

33. Reducing Lying
 When adults ask preschoolers not to carry out an act like peeking
under a box, and the adult leaves the room, about 80% peek
 About two-thirds of those who break the rule, lie about doing so
 Younger children do not cover the lie well so they say what is under the box and have
no explanation for knowing it
 Those children with most advanced understanding of how others think are best liars
because they lie about peeking and say they do not know what is under the box
 Children are most likely to lie when culture is a punitive, harsh one and much less
likely when culture is more understanding
 Parents less likely to have difficulty with lying if understanding and not harsh
33

34. Mindfulness Training for Young
Children
 Self-regulation involves using cognitive methods , like thinking,
paying attention to actions, in order to control feelings and impulsive
behaviors
 Preliminary studies with mindfulness training with preschool children
suggest it is a way to increase regulatory skills and more systematic
studies are required to understand and clearly document benefits
 Mindfulness training helps damp down the intense feelings of stress,
anxiety that can disrupt control
34

35. McHale’s Parents Are in Authority Stage
and Family Life Is Intense
 Parents’ are setting and enforcing reasonable limits
 Parents are teaching important values
 Fathers are more often involved in caregiving and have their views
 Children have energy, their own desires, and often resist parents’ rules
 Parents have to enforce consistently without anger
35

36. McHale’s Families Live in Intense
Emotional Atmosphere
 Parents are teaching values and have strong feelings about them
 More opportunities for parents to disagree as both may have strong
views about values and do not want to compromise
 Often a second child enters the family
 Time when developmental delays may be identified in children
36

37. McHale and Colleagues’ Findings when
Children are 30 Months
 Parents are busy setting limits consistently
 Fathers more involved in family life
 Parents want more time with each other and with the family
 “Negative emotion had become a feature of family life during the
toddler years in a manner seldom seen in infancy.”
37

38. Disagreements on values, and each
wants his or hers to be imposed
Parents worried that other parent
was hampering child’s development
by being too protective
Parents worried that other parent
was hampering development by not
encouraging independence
38
Source of
Conflicts

39. Parents’ Level of Control
Two-thirds of these middle-class
parents say they or spouse or both
needed to learn greater control of their
tempers
They worried that they lacked enough
patience
As previous studies noted, parents’
anger is taken personally by young
children even when it springs from
unrelated sources
39

40. Adding Another Child to the Family
 Often during this period that family has a second or third child
 Pre-Second Child Family
 Tight triangular unit with intense contact between parents and
between parent and child
 Discipline is child-centered and relies on verbal persuasion
 First child is central focus of family life
40

41. Following Birth of Additional Child
 First child is no longer center of both parents’ attention
 Focus of family life is on caring for helpless baby
 When both parents have less time, they fall back on adult-centered
parenting measures of making demands of children, giving directives
 Older children lose attention and also child-centered discipline
41

42. Many Ways of Managing
 Parents may split family responsibilities, and each do half of all
activities
 Parents may be responsible for separate domains, and one care for
first child, and other, the second child
 Parents may organize a support network that helps with routine
chores so parents can spend time with both children
 Many families manage and at end of year, 63% of preschoolers want
another sibling
42

43. Ways to Encourage Positive Sibling
Relationships
 Recall program described in Chapter 5 for establishing positive sibling
relationships
 Helping children negotiate play overtures and acceptance
 Helping children to understand other sibling’s point of view and
feelings
 Coaching children in expressing feelings and solving disagreements
43

44. Learning of Child’s Delays
or Special Problems
In this period, a child’s delays or
special needs may be identified
Very stressful to parents and
other children in family
May vary from mild to severe,
requiring various levels of
intervention
44

45. Family Stress Theory Increases
Understanding of Family’s Coping Skills
 Level of stress will vary depending on family’s perceptions of delay or
special needs
 Level of stress will affect all family members
 Level of stress will depend on family’s resources, support network,
problem-solving skills
 When stress is high, parents increase their resources by recruiting
relatives, friends to pitch in to help with siblings or shop or supply
food
45

46. Parents’ Many Tasks
 Getting accurate diagnosis, getting second opinions if needed
 Finding best services available
 Including care for child in work and family activities
 Maintaining relationships with other parent and family members
 Having open family communications about delays
46

47. Strategies Parents Find Useful
at Stressful Times
Emotional
 Focusing on the many positive
aspects of life
 Finding humor in situations
 Getting moral support and
comfort from others
 Realizing they can not do it all
Cognitive
 Setting priorities and doing
things that are most necessary
 Planning how to use time and
energy
 Taking on tasks if no one else can
do them
 Limit volunteer work
47

48. CFD 250
Parenting in Contemporary Society
Missouri State University
Springfield, Missouri
Kim Sutton, M.Ed.