How old is late childhood

Typically, a child will gain about pounds a year and grow about inches per year CDC, They also tend to slim down and gain muscle strength and lung capacity making it possible to engage in strenuous physical activity for long periods of time.

The beginning of the growth spurt, which occurs prior to puberty, begins two years earlier for females than males. The mean age for the beginning of the growth spurt for girls is nine, while for boys it is eleven. Children of this age tend to sharpen their abilities to perform both gross motor skills, such as riding a bike, and fine motor skills, such as cutting their fingernails.

In gross motor skills involving large muscles boys typically outperform girls, while with fine motor skills small muscles girls outperform the boys. These improvements in motor skills are related to brain growth and experience during this developmental period. Between ages 6 and 8, significant improvements in fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination are noted. Blind obedience is not expected even when children are very young. Attempts are made to have children understand the meaning of the rules and the reasons the social group expects them to abide by them.

Instead of corporal punishment, in democratic discipline an attempt is made to make the punishment 'fit the crime' in the sense that the punishment is related to the misdeed. Appreciation for attempts to conform to social expectations as spelled out in rules is shown by rewards, mainly in the form of praise and social recognition. The brighter the child, the more quickly speech skills will be mastered and consequently the ability to talk.

Children who grow up in homes where discipline tends to be permissive talk more than those whose parents are authoritarian and who believe that 'children should be seen but not heard. Firstborn children are encouraged to talk more than their later-born siblings and their parents have more time to talk to them.

Only-children are encouraged to talk more than children from large families and their parents have more time to talk to them. In large families, the discipline is likely to be authoritarian and this prevents children from talking as much as they would like to.

In lower-class families, family activities tend to be less organized than those in middle and upper class families. There is also less conversation among the family member and less encouragement for the child to talk. The poorer quality of speech and conventional skills of many young children may be due in part to the act that they have grown in homes where the father is absent, or where family life is disorganized because there are many children, or because the mother must work outside home.

While young children from bilingual homes can talk as much at home as children from monolingual homes, their speech is usually very limited when they are with members of their peer group or with adults outside the home.

As early as the preschool years, there are effective sex-role typing on children's speech. Boys are expected to talk less than girls, but what they saw and how they say it, is expected to be different. Boasting and criticizing others, for example are considered more appropriate for boys than the girls, while the reverse is true of tattling. Babies who suck for long periods show signs of tenseness.

They engage in more non nutritive sucking such as thumb-sucking , have more sleep difficulties, and are more restless than those whose sucking periods are shorter. If weaning is delayed, babies are likely to resist new kinds of food and substitute thumb-sucking for the nipple. They will also resist semi-solid foods. If such foods are introduced too early, not because of their taste but because of their texture.

Crying, strenuous play with an adult or noise can make babies tense and keep them from falling asleep. Sleep schedules that do not meet the requirements of the individual babies make them tense and resistant to sleep. These habits cannot be established until the nerves and muscles have developed adequately. Trying to toilet train babies too early will make them uncooperative about establishing these habits when they are maturationally ready.

Delay in toilet training, on the other hand, results in habits of irregularity and lack of motivation on the baby's part. Enuresis - bed-wetting is common when training is not timed according to the baby's developmental readiness.

Parents who have had experience in caring for earlier-born children, taken courses given in prenatal clinics or babysat for older siblings or neighbors' children have more confidence in assuming the parental role than to those who have lacked any such experiences. The mother's attitude toward the infant is more favourable when the childbirth experience has been relatively easy than when it is prolonged, difficult, and followed by physical complications.

The father's attitude is also colored by his wife's childbirth experience. The more quickly a mother recovers after childbirth, the more favorable her attitude toward the infant will be and the more confident she will be of her ability to fulfill her maternal role satisfactorily. When complication arise at childbirth, such as a caesarean operation, prematurity which necessitates special nursing care and a prolonged stay in the hospital, or some defect brought on at birth or apparent at birth, parental attitudes will be unfavorably affected by concern about the unexpected expenses involved.

If there is a suspicion or actual evidence that the infant is defective in some respect, parental attitudes will be colored by disappointment, concern about the future normality of the infant, and the added expense the defect will cost.

The faster and the better the infant adjusts to postnatal environment, the more favorable parents' attitudes will be. Infants who cry excessively and without apparent reason encourage the development of unfavorable attitudes not only on the part of parents but also on the part of all family members.

Parental Resentments against Work, Privations, and Expenses. When parents find that the care of the infant requires more work, privations and expenses than they had anticipated, their attitudes toward the infant will be far less favorable than they would have been had they prepared themselves for the conditions that parenthood normally imposes.

If an infant must remain in the hospital longer than the usual stay, as a result of prematurity, some defect, or poor postnatal adjustments, parents are not only concerned about the infants normality, but also about their ability to care for the infant after leaving the hospital. When an infant must remain in the hospital longer than the usual time and be given special attention, parents become concerned about the infant's survival.

If the infant does survive, parents tend to be over protective when they assume responsibility for its care. Developed by Therithal info, Chennai.

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