Preschool Here We Come!

Gabriel is now 3 years, 11 months old! To promote healthy behavioral practices and an interest in physical activity, my husband and I love to play catch with Gabriel, shoot mini-basketballs and kick the mini-soccer ball. Although Gabriel is too young to follow any of the rules of these games, we figure it's a good chance to develop ball-handling skills and fitness. Gabriel is also fascinated by music and enjoys dancing. Since the age of two, we have taken Gabriel on walks around the neighborhood or in the park

Gabriel’s language development is going slowly. His scores in receptive and expressive vocabulary are below average. When asked to tell a story about a funny picture, Gabriel will give only the broad outlines without any details. Gabriel sometimes seems not to understand our directions. He is still speaking mostly in two to three word sentences, and using gestures. Sometimes Gabriel gets frustrated and throws a tantrum when he can't communicate. Gabriel likes to tell people about things he has done, but he usually leaves out some key details.

My husband and I have been urged to have more conversations with Gabriel about anything of interest, read aloud, watch educational television together and go to interesting places. Gabriel loves to watch children's educational television and we encourage this. He is learning to name some letters and numbers. He sometimes repeats what the characters on the shows say, but sometimes just sits and watches or plays with his toys. When out on our walks around the neighborhood, he seems to be curious about every fence, leaf or bird and always wants to stop and look at, touch, or talk about them so we take the time to answer all of his questions about his surroundings.

Gabriel is average in his cognitive development. He can understand quantitative descriptions like “more” or “less” and “longer” or “shorter”. He is good with classifying objects like types of animals and in solving reasoning problems. He is about average in copying designs, solving picture puzzles, and building block towers. He can now see patterns and seems to have a good idea of how familiar things happen, such as baths and restaurant visits. He often points out when someone doesn't do something in the right order. He is having a little trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality though. Gabriel seems to know that the cartoons he watches aren't real, but he gets nervous or scared when watching prime-time dramas or even "G" rated videos.

I think the reason behind Gabriel’s short responses is that my husband and I are not being clear enough in our responses to Gabriel’s questions and not asking enough open-ended questions. If we give him more opportunities to use his vocabulary, maybe his language skills will improve. We are also being very careful about what we let Gabriel watch on T.V. I think we may need to find a particular show that captures his interest to fully use his interest to our advantage. When Gabriel is telling us about something he has done, we need to listen to his telling of the story with enthusiasm and ask questions to prompt him to fill in a few details he missed.

Outside our home, Gabriel is quite self-confident in new social situations and seems to be well-liked by several children. He has several little friends in preschool and is somewhat of a group leader in free play activities, such as imaginary play or riding trikes. We also have new neighbors two doors down. Gabriel has struck up a friendship with the four-year old boy that lives there. They have fun riding trikes on the sidewalk, playing superheroes and villains, and other games. Gabriel generally seems to want to please adults. He is rarely aggressive to adults or other children but sometimes he forgets to pick up or he doesn't listen. At home, Gabriel loves interacting with his new baby sister. Gabriel really wanted to have his sister in the room, and normally is able to sleep through the baby's crying at night, so we moved the crib into Gabriel's room. Gabriel also loves to talk about his friends from Preschool at home.

Gabriel’s behavioral problems right now are lying and behavior properly in public. Gabriel has begun occasionally lying to us about accidents or rule violations. The lies are pretty small and we realize this is a sign of a theory of mind. We wait until we catch him in the act, explain that lying is wrong, and put him in time-out. For good measure, we also explain that being lied to makes people feel bad. Gabriel is not generally able to sit still or stay quiet through an entire meal at a fast food restaurant but we are very clear about what we expect of him and remind him often during these outings. I think that Gabriel has not been exposed to enough of these experiences to know how to behave and that with firm guidance, these problems will be resolved.