The adventurous years

These are the Adventurous Years, filled with school, friends and activities. Your daughter is freer than she will be for a long time. Play is her “work” and she becomes increasingly social. Her imagination flourishes so that she may sometimes have difficulty telling fantasy from reality.

Her fine and gross motor skills are rapidly improving. She can run and skip, colour and cut, throw a ball and ride a bike. At school she will be learning a vast range of new things; to read and write, count and measure and to handle friendships. Her school will guide you in how best to support her learning so ask how she is being taught to read, to subtract.

If she seems to be significantly less well coordinated than her peers you should discus this with your GP. Similarly if she has difficulties learning to read discuss your concerns with her teacher. Early diagnosis of any developmental delays or learning difficulties makes it easier to get appropriate help and support.

In these years your daughter is free to try, to risk without worrying what others are thinking. By working through any fears she will develop confidence, gain social skills and discover her individual personality and talents. You can help her by teaching her how to fail, as well as to succeed. Many teenage issues such as eating disorders and substance abuse have roots in fear of failure. Until she learns how to recover from failure your daughter will believe she is only acceptable when she is successful.

At this stage her thinking is very literal and fairness is important to her. By giving her sensible and consistent boundaries you can help make her world safe and dependable. By giving her moral guidelines she starts to make sense of her world and her place in it.