Time flies, as they say, and before you know it, your little baby has grown into a toddler, then a preschooler and now, he or she is going to school.
No longer needing a bottle or sippy cup to drink, they can help themselves drinking from an open cup like an adult, use a fork and spoon or chopsticks or their hands to feed themselves according to family household practices, chew and eat harder, tougher foods with their full set of baby teeth and in fact, may be beginning to lose these teeth to make way for their permanent teeth, and no longer needing diapers as they know how to go to toilet by themselves.
At Five Years Old
By the time your child turns five years old, he would have already become a full-fledged preschooler. Preschool education from age five is compulsory in Malaysia and parents are encouraged to send their children to privately-run kindergartens or to the national schools which provide preschool or kindergarten classes for five and six year olds. This is to prepare them for formal education when they enter Standard 1 when they turn seven.
Some children might have started going to nursery school or playschool by the age of three or four. Early childhood education helps children learn socialisation and general life skills to support their success later in school and society. Preschools also provide many activities to keep your child engaged while helping them discover how the world works around them.
Cognitive and Communication Development
Cognitively, your child would now be able to count some numbers, name at least four colours, understand time concepts as he can now use words like “yesterday”, “today”, “tomorrow”, “morning”, “afternoon” and “night” and speak clearly in a sentence. He can pay attention for at least five to 10 minutes, understand instructions and also draw a person with at least six body parts as well as name a few letters of the alphabet when you point to them.
Social and Emotional Development
In terms of social and emotional development, he can play in a group, can follow rules like take turns and wants to please his friends. He knows the difference between reality and make-believe and knows the difference between a boy and a girl. He expresses his likes and dislikes and demonstrates both demanding as well as cooperative behaviours.
At home, he can sing, dance and act for you and help in simple household chores like sort the laundry, pick up his own toys, empty small bins, or clear up the table after eating. Some children might even know how to cook by this age.
Physical Development
As can be seen with their ability to help with household chores and playing toys with friends, their physical skills and coordination at age five would have vastly improved. Your child can jump rope, skip, hop, and balance on one foot with eyes closed. Their fine motor skills have also improved. They can use zips, do up their buttons and laces, use simple tools and writing or colouring utensils and for those taking up music lessons, they can control the muscles in their fingers to play simple tunes on their musical instruments. Many children in Malaysia begin their junior music courses by age four and five.
At Six Years Old
By age six, your child would have been attending kindergarten for a year. With kindergarten learning, he would be able to talk quite well such as describe a TV show, or what he did at school. He would be able to show you some of his drawings and craftwork and you will notice that his cognitive abilities such as his reasoning skills and expression of ideas have matured. He would also know some math concepts such as “more” or “less”, may be able to count 10 pieces of candy, sort them into different groups by their shape or colour or form, and be able to do simple additions and subtraction such as “one apple + one apple equals two apples”.
Cognitive and Communication Development
In terms of language and cognitive development, he may be able to spell his first name and even write it out and read some simple words. He would be able to tell you his age and how many sisters and brothers he has.
Social and Emotional Development
Emotionally and socially, he may have fears of the dark and large animals because he is starting to know the meaning of danger. Although his toddler tantrum days are mostly over by age six, he might still have trouble processing frustration and anger such as when he has difficulty mastering a new skill at kindergarten or when they lose at a game with their friends. Six-year-olds may be prone to sibling and friend rivalry. And definitely, they will begin to have a better sense of self as well as assert themselves more, and begin to separate and individuate themselves from you.
At kindergarten, they will usually like to play with friends of the same gender. Boys will most likely play with other boys while girls will play with other girls. Although still focused mostly on themselves, they will start to understand the feelings of others. This will be a good time to teach them empathy.
You could teach your child empathy by encouraging perspective-taking. For example, when your child talks about events at school or on the playground, you could ask them about how their classmate or friend thought and felt about the situation. Six-year-olds understand that other people have thoughts and feelings that are different from their own and that words and actions can affect the emotions of others. Teaching empathy can help prevent bullying or always wanting to have things their way, help them make friends, build connection and relationships and also regulate their emotions and behaviours as they move into formal school life the following year.
Physical Development
At six years old, your child’s increased physical abilities and growing independence can put him at risk of injury from falls and other accidents. For one, you may find him unable to sit still. His predilection for moving and jumping about, running and climbing could result in untoward events. It would seem that your child cannot sit still or walk slowly but run all the time. Teach your child to watch out for traffic and how to be safe when walking on the road, playing outside, riding a bike, or skateboarding or rollerblading. By six years old, their balance and coordination have become as good as an adult’s. When swimming, teach him water safety and always supervise when he is swimming and playing near water or when he is engaging in risky activities such as climbing or jumping from heights.
At Seven Years Old
Reaching the age of seven marks a major milestone in your child’s life. With him entering formal education at Year 1 or Standard 1, he is officially become a school-goer where he will be spending the next 12 to 13 years. This marks the beginning of a brand-new phase in your child’s life. It also marks a change in the parents’ routines as now they will have to adapt to a new timetable and adjust their routines to accommodate their children’s school hours, extra-curricular classes, sport’s day, school holidays, and so on.
Cognitive and Communication Development
By age seven, children would be using complex sentences and speaking like an adult. They would be able to express and answer both factual as well as inferential questions and understand words that have multiple meanings. They would also be acquiring vocabulary and be able to speak and understand as many as 20,000 to 30,000 words. However, they may still have trouble pronouncing some of the bigger, harder words.
Many children in Malaysia are bi-lingual or tri-lingual, having learned a second or third language while at home and at pre-school. However, they would be more fluent with their mother-tongue. At seven, your child would be thinking in a complex manner. They also would have learned some basics in reading, writing and maths during their two years in preschool.
Children at this age will have a more developed sense of time and routines. They know they will have to get up and get ready for school by a certain time, what time they will have recess time when they can play and eat together with their classmates, and when their school bus or parents will come pick them up. At home, they know when they must complete their homework, when is playtime and when they should go to bed.
Social and Emotional Development
Although they will have better control of their emotions by age seven, they will still get into playground spats, get angry, or upset or feel guilty and ashamed, but would more likely articulate these emotions through words. They begin to understand ambivalence which means they understand they can sometimes feel a range of emotions about a single situation such as feeling excited and fearful while going on a rollercoaster or down a big slide.
Socially, your child will learn social norms and show or hide certain emotions depending on what is accepted by their friends or adults in their immediate environment. They compare themselves to other children their age and may be self-critical or discouraged if they feel they are not as good as other children at performing a certain task or activity.
At this age, your child will become more competitive and may react strongly to successes or failures. They will also know what is right and wrong, true and false and begin to understand what telling lies means and how their actions and words impact others.
Physical Development
Your child’s gross and fine motor skills should have developed even more by this time. They would be able to hold a pencil and colours pencils and write or colour within the line without much difficulty. They should also be able to dress themselves, do their buttons, put on their socks and shoes without help.
Although proper nutrition and sleep might not be foremost on parents’ minds at this time, it is still very important that children eat balanced meals of nutrient-dense foods from the five food groups and follow a healthy lifestyle. Screentime should be limited to two hours a day and children should have outdoor activities for an hour a day to keep active. Sleep is very important as they need proper rest to rejuvenate so that they stay alert and attentive at school. The CDC recommends nine to 12 hours of sleep a night for children at this age.
Ensuring Your Child Gets Proper Nutrition
With your child entering preschool or Primary school and beginning formal learning, Morinaga Chil-kid − a Japanese formulation − has all the essential nutrients to bolster his nutritional needs that will keep him or her active, alert and attentive through class and beyond.
Packed with over 45 essential nutrients including ARA, DHA, GOS, 5 Nucleotides, Omega 3&6 LCPs and 27 vitamins and minerals, Morinaga Chil-kid which is formulated for Asian children aged one to seven, will meet a fast-growing child’s daily Recommended Nutrient Intake (RNI) when taken alongside their daily meals.
Produced from dairy cows in the Netherlands and packed in the country’s a state-of-the-art plant, the milk formula goes through two quality assurance processes at the factory in the Netherlands and also at Morinaga Japan before it is released into the market in Malaysia.
For more information on Morinaga Chil-kid, do visit the website here.