Parenting In Focus: Your growing 4-year-old

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 27, 2022

When you have a child of this age, this is a fun time. Maybe the child is your child or maybe you are a grandma or grandpa or a care provider for this child. Whatever your role, 4 is a special age.

Children of this age are active and have loads of energy.

• They may be aggressive at times in their play.

• They love being silly (making faces, telling jokes, and imitating others).

• They like using words in rhymes and nonsense.

• They are great talkers and questioners.

• They are becoming more controlled in running, jumping, and hopping.

• They may experiment with swear words and bathroom words.

• They may change friendships very quickly.

• They can be very imaginative and exaggerate a great deal.

• They may brag and can be bossy.

• They can go from being loud and adventurous to shy and dependent.

• They may form cliques with friends but can change friends quickly.

This is an age when your child is eager to become more independent. This is a challenge for you. It is important to help her learn this new skill. You need to figure out where you should be involved and where to cut out. If you rush to her aid, will it encourage her to feel supported or make her feel helpless? If you let her struggle, will she become more confident or just more frustrated?

One of the exciting things about these early years are all the words she is learning as she approaches kindergarten. When she learns that a pediatrician is a child’s doctor or that there are words like frustrated that describe how she feels, she will be excited. You should be too.

As her vocabulary expands, use new words to help her expand even more. Make words fun. Don’t forget to use a dictionary at times or to ask Siri on your computer what a word means.

Probably the most important way a parent can encourage this drive toward independence is to give her choices. When she is comfortable making small decisions at an early age, she has a huge advantage when it comes to making larger decisions when she is older.

It may not seem like a big thing to let her pick the shirt she will wear or the book she wants to read, but it is. Whenever you can, encourage her to decide for herself.

Children of this age need the chance to experiment and discover limits, practice play activities, stretch their imagination and curiosity, put together puzzles, use crayons and scissors, and especially read and talk a lot.

This is a very special time and one you will discover many new things about the little one you know.

Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and former executive director of Parenting Matters Foundation, which published newsletters for parents, caregivers and grandparents.