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5 Year Olds: Growth & DevelopmentYoung Children: 5 Year Olds

Introduction

Your young child is forming an identity, meeting more people, and going to new places! On this page, you’ll find the tasks and milestones that are allowing your child to get along with others, engage in more complex play, and participate more in taking care of themselves.

Learn about your young child’s brain. Their cells are forming complex connections.

Young children

This is a year of change for you and your child. Even if children are used to child care or preschool, starting kindergarten is a big step. Your child is developing a longer attention span and craves answers and information. At this stage, they not only ask, “Why?” but also, “What if?” 

Each child grows at their own rate and their growth pattern may be different from their siblings and friends. In addition, you can expect that they’ll:

  • grow in spurts—they may seem to stay the same size for weeks and then grow taller almost overnight
  • get stronger and want to test their new abilities as their body grows

If you have concerns about your child’s growth, call Health Link at 811 or talk with your health care provider.

“Being a parent has made me a better person. I’m way more patient and empathetic than I was before. It has made me a better sister, daughter, partner and friend.”

~Kim, mom of two children

Developmental milestones

Your young child is meeting more people and going to new places. As they start kindergarten and form new relationships, they’ll learn more about getting along with others. They’ll begin to feel more comfortable and confident on their own, with other children, and in new surroundings. As they explore further from home, your child will still need your loving support when they come back to you with their new thoughts and questions.

As your young child reaches the age of 5, they’re eager to learn, do new things and begin to develop a longer attention span. Your child can move with more purpose and skill. Below, you’ll find information about the developmental milestones and tasks your child is working on between the ages of 5 and 6 years.

5 year olds: The ‘identity’ and ‘power’ stage

Tasks

During this time, your child is continuing to practice earlier tasks as well as learning to:

  • form an identity: start to know who they are and how they fit into the world
  • recognize personal power: learn that they have control over their actions and that their behaviours have an effect on others
  • develop industry: begin to enjoy the process of figuring things out and solving problems

Milestones: Physical

  • develops more co-ordination and complex skills
  • has stronger muscles
  • moves with more purpose and is more accurate
  • enjoys being active
  • draws and starts to print letters
  • may need more sleep due to the demands of school

Milestones: Social

  • becomes more competitive
  • enjoys games with rules
  • feels more empathy for others
  • has a best friend
  • has more adults in their lives that influence them, such as their teachers and coaches
  • likes to please

Milestones: Emotional

  • has a better sense of right and wrong
  • begins to talk to themselves out loud to get calm
  • may not like being corrected
  • is easily upset by things that are not fair or ‘not right’

Milestones: Cognitive (thinking and communicating)

  • has a longer attention span
  • talks with more detail, using sentences and correct grammar
  • says most words correctly
  • is easily understood by you, siblings, friends and strangers
  • tells longer stories on the same topic
  • tells stories with a beginning, middle and end
  • likes telling jokes and riddles
  • begins to understand death and may ask many questions about it

If you have concerns about your child’s development, call Health Link at 811 or talk with your health care provider. You can also visit your nearest Family Resource Network and ask about the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). To find your local Family Resource Network, visit Government of Alberta – Provincial Family Resource Networks – Service Provider Search

Your young child’s developing brain

Brain development

Your young child will go through many changes in just a short time, develop many new skills, and enjoy being active. They’re thinking in new ways, experiencing complex emotions and learning how to get along with others. All areas of your young child’s development are interconnected and the development in one area affects development in all other areas. Your child’s development is guided by their brain.

When you know how the brain works, it’s easier to understand what you can do to support your child.

The names of four interconnected areas of development – physical, emotional, social, and cognitive – surround an image of a brain.
Tap or click image to expand

The thinking part of your young child’s brain is really developing now and the brain cell connections are becoming more complex. Positive relationships with you and other important people in their life have created a strong base.

The brain is now developing executive function skills that are essential for learning and getting along with others. Although it takes time for these skills to fully develop, your child is starting to be able to:

  • notice when their body is responding to stress and can sometimes cope with those feelings on their own
  • remember information so they can use it when they need it
  • be able to focus on a task and not get distracted
  • cope with their impulses
  • adapt their thoughts and feelings as situations change

Being able to self-regulate when they’re feeling stressed is one of the most important skills you can teach your child. It’s the foundation for executive function, life-long learning and health. Learn more about self-regulation.

There are many fun ways that you can teach your child to build executive function skills—things like having to wait, using their memory and teaching them about emotions. Learn more about executive function.

Brain cell connections also become stronger when you and your child engage in serve-and-return interactions. Here are some examples of what typical serve-and-return interactions might look like with your 5 year old:

Serve-and-return interactions

Examples of serve-and-return interactions: 5 year olds

Your child serves when they:You return their serve when you:
  • write notes and stories with scribbles that look like writing
  • let them help you make a shopping list using drawings or pictures from a flyer
  • want to dress and undress themselves and start to tell you what clothes they want to wear
  • plan extra time to get ready in the morning so they can have the time they need to get dressed by themselves
  • play games that need more physical skills, such as tag, hide-and-seek and hopscotch
  • give them lots of chances to play and be with other children
  • ask questions about what’s happening and start to predict what will happen next
  • look at the book cover before reading and ask your child to guess what the book is about. Then, pause once in a while as you read and ask them what they think will happen next.
  • are frustrated when they have to figure out what to do when they have a problem
  • acknowledge their feelings and work with them to think about solutions

Learn more about the developing brain.