Mimeo HE-174
October 1953 (3c)
Purdue University Agricultural Extension Service
THE PRESCHOOL CHILD
by
Dorothy V. Mummery
Family Life Specialist
Lesson I, The One Year Old - The Two Year Old
Out of Babyhood into Childhood
Parents and grandparents who are making every effort to help children grow and develop like to know what to expect of children of different ages and how they can best guide little children so that they will develop to the full capabilities nature intended. This leaflet is to give some understanding of what children are like at the successive preschool years, and of the general kinds of guidance that are most helpful.
Growth and Development
From 1 to 6 is a period of rapid change in a child’s development. A month in the life of a preschool child is like many months in the life as an adult. They are packed very full of brand new experiences, which help him in this rapid development. Every day there are new sensations - new sights, sounds, smell, tastes, new things to touch. Each new experience prepares him for the next provided he is allowed to set his own pace of development. In these years his experiences become wider and wider, at first within his own family and home, and then outside. Each day brings some new development, so strong is the natural urge to growth in every healthy child. He makes great strides forward. At one he may be able to pull off his sock, to creep rapidly and walk with help; at 2 he can manage a kiddie car; at 3 he may tire his mother out with the many questions he asks; at 4 he buttons his own clothes, and at 5 he plays well with other children and carries on a conversation with adults easily. At 5 or 6 he is all set to go to school. He will be ready to meet this new world of school successfully if he has been helped to establish good health habits, if he has been encouraged and taught to do things for himself, if he has learned to give and take in playing with other children, if he is on the way toward healthy mental attitudes. He has traveled a long way since one year of age.

All children grow and develop according to the same general pattern.
Just as all babies learn first to lift the head and trunk, then sit alone, and finally stand; so preschool children develop very much like all others their age. Children during this period learn to use their hands skillfully, to walk and run steadily, to skip, to talk easily and to play happily with others. But there are great differences in the rate at which normal children grow and develop and the age at which they are able to do certain things. Some have doubled their birth weight at 5 months, and others at 7 months; some walk at 12 or 13 months and some at 18 months. Parents should not be impatient for their child to do what some other child is doing at the same age. We know it is a mistaken idea that a child who is slow to walk or talk is necessarily backward. Although dull children are slow, many very bright people have been slow in learning these things.
Parents can expect that in general children will learn to do things in