Middle Childhood

• Demonstrating calmness and staying in control of one's own feelings is a crucial aspect of leadership.
• Physical growth during the primary school years is slow but steady.
• During this stage, physical development involves having good muscle control and coordination, developing eye-hand coordination, having good personal hygiene, and being aware of good safety habits.
• In this developmental stage, children will have started their elementary grades, specifically their primary years – Grades 1 to 3.
• These children are extremely active and often release their unusual amount of energy in nervous habits such as fidgeting, nail biting, and pencil chewing.
• Primary-school age children get fatigued more easily due to physical and mental exertions both at home and in school.
• Activities should be alternated between strenuous ones and relaxing or quiet activities.
• This period of gradual and steady growth will give children time to get used to the changes in their bodies.
• An average increase in height of a little over two inches a year in both boys and girls will introduce children to many different activities that they can now do with greater accuracy.
• Weight gain averages about 6.5 pounds a year.
• Most children will have a slimmer appearance compared to their preschool years due to shifts in accumulation and location of their body fat, although girls tend to develop additional fat cells relative to muscle cells.
• A child’s legs are longer and more proportioned to the body than they were before.
• Many factors can indicate how much a child grows, or how much changes in the body will take place: genes, food, climate, exercise, medical conditions, diseases/illnesses, and bones and muscles.
• Childhood years are the peak bone-producing years – bones grow longer and broader.
• This is the best time for parents and teachers to educate children of good dietary and exercise habits to help them have strong, healthy bones throughout their lives.
• Replacement of primary teeth, also known as baby teeth, with permanent teeth occur around ages 6 to 7 years and up until age 12, most children will have all their primary teeth replaced.
• Many lifestyle factors, like nutrition and physical activity, can substantially influence the increase of bone mass during childhood.
• Parents and teachers should provide a supportive setting where children have opportunities to practice emotional regulation and social skills with peers.
• Some adults may perceive that some children’s behavior towards other children as antisocial, but it is fairly normal for children at this stage to explore other children as they form their own world views.
• Parents and teachers should give children activities when they can practice taking turns, sharing and playing cooperatively.
• Once children reach school age, they begin to take pride in their ability to do things and their capacity to exert effort, and like receiving positive feedback from their parents and teachers.
• Primary school children prefer to belong to peer groups of the same gender and may use their surroundings to observe and mingle with other children.
• Children have a growing understanding of their place in the world and are comfortable and show confidence in doing things they are good at, but also show frustration in things that they find difficult.
• School experiences become the priority, with children so busy doing school work.
• Parents and teachers can help children make friends by exposing them to kid-rich environments, creating a play group in their class, and reminding them that their behavior hurts others.
• Parents and teachers should be a role model of healthy emotions and expressing these emotions appropriately.
• One’s self-concept is the knowledge about the self, such as beliefs regarding personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values, goals and roles.
• In the transition from pre-elementary to primary school, children tend to become increasingly self-confident and able to cope well with social interactions.
• Primary school children’s self-concept is influenced not only by their parents, but also by the growing number of people they interact with, including teachers and classmates.
• The encouragement of parents and caring educators helps to build a child’s sense of self-esteem, confidence and ability to interact positively in the world.
• Children, until the age of seven or eight, prefer to belong to peer groups of the same gender and may need some time to play alone.
• Health-care providers, teachers and parents should be able to gain understanding of their child’s socio-emotional strengths and weaknesses by observing the child’s behavior at home.
• Parents and teachers should work collaboratively with the child’s parents and health-care provider to expand one’s insights on the child’s development.
• Primary school children’s socio-emotional competency should be viewed in the context of the child’s developmental age.
• Having a healthy self-concept does not mean that a child thinks they are better than others, it means that they like themselves, feel accepted by their family and friends and believe they can do well.
• Elementary-aged children encounter developmental milestones, leaving behind egocentric thinking and developing a more mature way of looking at things, which enhances children's problem-solving skills.
• Jean Piaget is the foremost theorist on cognitive development.
• Logic is a key aspect of Piaget's concrete operational stage, with children able to use inductive logic but having difficulty using deductive logic.
• Parents, child care providers, and teachers should be able to recognize these by helping children draw on their strengths and promote growth in their weaknesses, planning lessons that cater to multiple intelligences based on instructional objectives, encouraging children to read more every day to increase their vocabulary, bringing children to museums, art exhibits, and historical landmarks to widen their perspective about the world and people, and lessening children's screen time and increasing their personal and face-to-face interactions.
• According to several theorists, the human mind is a system that can process information through the application of logical rules and strategies.