Almost Time for Kindergarten...

I would describe my parenting style as affectionate but firm. I try to give Gabriel praise often for good behavior and improving his skills, but I am clear and firm when he disobeys or displays a behavior I don’t approve of. I also try to give him every opportunity to learn from his surroundings, doing what I can to answer all questions and requests for certain activities. When Gabriel was younger, I was a little less sure about how to handle Gabriel’s misbehavior. Now that I know to be affectionate but firm, Gabriel has seen a great improvement. I also do my best to help him with his language skills because those are the skills he has the most difficulty with. One of those ways has been to read to him daily, just as my parents did with me when I was a child. We also try to take as many trips to interesting places as possible as a family so that Gabriel and his little sister bond with my husband and I while learning new things as this was tradition when I was growing up.

Some changes have occurred since Gabriel has turned 4. Gabriel is now beginning to like counting and board games and Gabriel has age-appropriate skills in counting, classifying and understanding quantitative relationships. This is a great improvement from the basic skills he had before of just categorizing objects at 20 months old. He doesn't quite understand conservation or seriation yet, but he still loves asking questions about animals, nature, and how things work. I have noticed Gabriel more and more set in his ideas about gender roles too. I believe this is an increase in his self awareness. He refuses to play with anything other than “boy toys”. While he is still below average on tests of receptive and expressive vocabulary, Gabriel’s literacy skills have grown. Gabriel has already learned most of the letters and their sounds from watching educational TV, and from games and songs at preschool. He can write his own name, read a few words, and is very interested in listening to books.

I believe that Gabriel is a resilient child. He is usually in a positive mood, and seems to be able to handle the ups and downs of the day. He seems to be able to avoid conflicts and arguments with the other children. He is also a very sweet and cooperative child. In preschool he picked up the classroom and playground rules pretty well. Occasionally he gets upset by negative events or overly excited by positive events and becomes a little wild and needs to be calmed down. If a particularly stressful situation comes up, Gabriel will get upset for a while but soon move on and forget about it. So far an amazing child!