Mercy Network
Mercy Family Clinic
Pediatric and Adolescent
Four Years
Promotion of Social Competence
- Provide opportunities for your four year old to socialize
with other children in playgroups, preschool, or other community
activities.
- Your child can accept some chores such as setting the table
for meals and helping clean afterwards.
- He may play games with rules, but he often will interpret
rules as optional and applicable only when the rules are to
his advantage.
- Praise your child for cooperation and accomplishments.
- Spend individual time with your child, doing something you
both enjoy.
- Enlarge your child’s experiences through trips and
visits to parks and other places of interest.
- Set developmentally appropriate limits. Use time out, or
removal of source of conflict for unacceptable behavior.
Parenting
- You should establish a balance between your child’s
need for independence and the need to educate her about social
rules and limits on behavior.
- Provide her opportunity to demonstrate independence in dressing
and feeding herself.
- Provide developmentally appropriate and clearly stated limits
and consequences if rules are broken.
- You can use time out and removal of source of conflict for
unacceptable behavior. Nagging and idle threats are ineffective.
- At this age, your child can accept come chores such as setting
the table for meals and helping clean afterwards.
- She may play games with rules, but she will often interpret
rules as optional and applicable only when the rules are to
her benefit.
- Praise your child for cooperation and accomplishments.
- Encourage your child to talk to you about her preschool,
friends, or observations.
- Spend individual time with each child doing something you
both enjoy.
- Broaden your child’s experiences through trips and
visits to parks, zoos, museums, and other places of interest.
- Provide opportunities for your four year old to socialize
with other children in play groups, preschool, or other community
activities.
- Provide some type of structured learning environment for
your child, such as in Head Start, preschool, Sunday school,
or a community program or child care center.
- Masturbation is quite common and a normal part of self-discovery
at this age if it is private and not highly preferred over
most other activities. It should involve stimulation only of
the external genitalia and leave no signs or symptoms.
- Preschool children may frequently try to touch the breasts
or genitalia of their parents.
Injury Prevention
- Your preschool child still needs close supervision in the
home, the neighborhood, and around water.
- Never leave your child alone in the car or the house or
while he is taking a bath.
- Electrical tools, firearms, cigarettes, matches, lighters,
alcohol, poisons, medications, and toxic household products
locked up. Use safety caps on medication. Lock up ammunition
and guns in separate locations.
- Continue to use a car seat or properly secured booster until
your child weighs 60 pounds or his head is higher than the
back of the seat.
- Keep Syrup of Ipecac in the home to be used as directed
by the poison control center or the doctor.
- Your child needs supervision when riding a tricycle or bicycle.
Ensure that your child wears a bicycle helmet when riding a
tricycle or a bicycle. Also, set a good example by wearing
a helmet when you ride a bicycle.
- Instruct you child not to talk to or accept food from strangers.
Your children should be instructed to tell their parents if
they are touched in a manner that seems inappropriate or unpleasant.
- In case of a fire in the home, you should have a plan of
escape.
Nutrition
- Poor appetite and finicky food preferences may persist.
Offer small portions of nutritious foods at three regular meals
and two snacks per day.
- Let your child decide from these nutritious foods, what
and how much to eat.
- Make an effort to create a pleasant atmosphere at mealtime
with table conversation that includes opportunities for your
child to participate.
- Supervise tooth brushing twice a day with a pea-size amount
of fluoride toothpaste.
- Ask your dentist what to do with accidental loss or fracture
of teeth.
- Schedule a dental appointment for your child every six months.
Return to Health Care Tip
For physician referral or health
information call:
Mercy Family Health Line
641.422.7777 or
1.800.468.0050
