As your little one enters the preschool years, you may start to experience some new and challenging behaviors.
You’ve probably heard of the “terrible twos,” and this next stage is sometimes referred to as having a “threenager” or “fournado” because of these new behavioral changes.
Five Common Preschool-Age Behaviors:
Tantrums and Big Emotions: At this age, children are still developing emotional regulation skills. Tantrums or big emotional outbursts can occur when they feel frustrated, overwhelmed or unable to express their feelings effectively.
Testing Boundaries: Preschoolers might push boundaries to see how much they can get away with, which is a normal part of learning self-control and understanding social rules.
Difficulty Sharing or Taking Turns: Preschoolers are still developing an understanding of empathy and cooperation.
Expressing Preferences. At this age, they’re starting to assert their preferences and show strong likes and dislikes for things.
Independence: As they transition into a “big kid” they’re starting to want to do things all by themselves.
Dr. Paul Schuh, a pediatrician at Akron Children’s Akron East Pediatric Primary Care Office, says while these behaviors can feel intense in the moment, this is part of normal development as children become more verbal and realize they can express their opinion.
“Their language skills are way better than they were when they’re two and so they tend to talk a lot and they have an opinion about everything,” he says.
Children at this age should be speaking, even if they’re still hard to understand. They should also be engaging and playing with other children and making eye contact.
Dealing with Difficult Behavior
There are a few ways to cope with your preschooler pushing your patience. Schuh says “timeout” is appropriate for certain offenses such as being hurtful to another child.
“Kids this age love being part of the group and so one of the worst things you can do is make them sit by themselves — so, timeout works well,” he says. “And you know, honestly, if it’s kind of a minor offense sometimes you’re better off just ignoring things and just not reinforcing the behavior.”
Schuh adds that recognizing good behavior is also important.
“If you just notice that your kids are playing quietly and you’re like, ‘hey, you’re doing a really good job,” or something like that, just catching them being good, I think helps,” he says.
At home, Schuh says schedules and routines help kids at this age feel more secure and know what to expect. He also advises making sure your child gets enough sleep and limiting and monitoring screen time.
If your little one is starting to attend daycare or a preschool program, they may express some anxiety or become extra clingy during drop-off. Schuh says these feelings typically go away pretty quickly after parents leave. Bringing something special from home or having a family picture in the classroom can help with separation anxiety during the school day.
While this age has its challenging moments, the preschool years are also filled with fun, learning, imagination and curiosity.
