Your Six Year Old Child

Your six year old has learned a multitude of skills. In addition to beginning his or her school journey with kindergarten and/or first grade, your child has mastered many more physical skills such as bouncing a ball 4-6 times, throwing and catching, riding a bicycle, knowing right from left, and drawing pictures of people with at least six body parts.

Caring For Your Six Year Old:

Childhood obesity is a growing concern in our country. As the parent of a 6 year old, you can begin to monitor your child’s habits and promote healthier lifestyle choices. This includes:

Encouraging physical activity, such as participation in organized sports teams.
Limiting activities such as television and video games to 1 to 2 hours per day.
Eating meals at the table (eating in front of the television or in the child’s room both lead to overeating.)
Eating out less than one meal per week.
Limit juice to one cup per day and avoid Kool-Aid, soda and sports drinks.

As a parent, you can significantly influence your child’s development and self-esteem by showing interest in your child’s school and daily activities. Encourage and participate in activities outside the house. Take your child to the library, encourage reading and even promote the responsibility of his or her own library card.

If your child participates in organized sports, make sure that the rules and fun are stressed instead of winning. Sports participation has been proven to improve school performance, self-esteem, social skills as well as promoting physical exercise and activity.

Don’t forget to continue regular dental check-ups.

Your Child’s Safety

Don’t skimp on safety. The older your child gets, the more involved he or she will be with a variety of situations and activities. Remember to:

Use a booster car seat until your child is 70-80 pounds.
Have your child sit in the back seat until age 13.
When riding bikes, require the use of a helmet 100% of the time.
If your child roller blades, remember to use helmets, wrist guards, and knee and elbow pads.
Use sunscreen SPF 15 or 30 and insect repellant when outdoors.
Continue to talk to your child about strangers and the concepts of “good touch” and “bad touch.”

Your Next Appointment

Your child’s next physical appointment will be at 8 years of age, or 7 years of age if a physical is required for sports, camping, or other activities. If your child has a chronic medical condition such as asthma, allergies or scoliosis, we will advise you on the timing of your next visit.

How to Instill Schoolwork Responsibility

Definition
Taking responsibility for schoolwork helps children grow up to be responsible adults who keep their promises, meet deadlines, and succeed at their jobs. Responsible children finish schoolwork, homework, and long-term projects on time. They remember their assignments and turn in papers. They occasionally ask for help (e.g., with a spelling list) but usually like to think through their work by themselves.

How to Encourage Schoolwork Responsibility
The following suggestions should help you cultivate the trait of responsibility in your child, and avoid problems with schoolwork that may be difficult to correct later on.

Encourage learning and responsibility in the preschool years. Listen attentively to your children’s conversations. Encourage them to think for themselves. Take your child to the library and read to him or her regularly. Watch educational programs together and talk about them. Be a role model of someone who reads, finds learning exciting, enjoys problem solving, and likes to try new things.
Show your child you are interested in his or her school performance. Ask your child about his or her school day. Look at and comment positively on the graded papers your child brings home. Praise your child’s strong points on his or her report card. Show interest in the books your child is reading. Help your child attend school regularly; don’t keep him or her home for minor illnesses. Go to regular parent-teacher conferences and tell your child about them. If you feel discouraged, rather than conveying this to your child, schedule a conference with his or her teacher.
Support the school staff’s recommendations. Show respect for both the school system and the teacher, at least in your child’s presence. Verbal attacks on the school may pit your child against the school and give him or her an excuse for not working. Even when you disagree with a school’s policy, you should encourage your child to conform to school rules, just as he or she will need to conform to the broader rules of society.
Make it clear that schoolwork is between your child and the teacher. When your child begins school he or she should understand that homework, schoolwork, and marks are strictly between him or her and his or her teacher. The teacher should set goals for better school performance, not the parents. Your child must feel responsible for success and failures in school. People take more pride in accomplishments if they feel fully responsible for them. Parents who feel responsible for their child’s school performance open the door for the child to turn his or her responsibilities over to them. Occasionally, elementary school teachers may ask you to review basic facts with your child or see that your child completes work that was put off at school. When your child’s teacher makes such requests, it’s fine for you to help, but only as a temporary measure.
Stay out of homework. Asking if your child has homework, helping nightly, checking the finished homework, or drilling your child in areas of concern, all convey to your child that you don’t trust him. If you do your child’s homework, your child will have less confidence that he or she can do it himself. If your child asks for help with homework, help with the particular problem only. Your help should focus on explaining the question, not on giving the answer. A good example of useful help is reading your child’s spelling list to him or her while he or she writes the words, but then letting him or her check his or her own answers. A chief purpose of homework is to teach your child to work on his or her own.
Avoid dictating a study time. Assigning a set time for your child to do homework is unnecessary and looked on as pressure. The main thing parents can do is to provide a quiet setting with a desk, a comfortable chair, and good lighting. If any, the only rule should be “No television until homework is done.” Accept your child’s word that the homework is done without checking. For long-term assignments, help your child organize his or her work the first few times if he or she seems overwhelmed. Help him or her estimate how many hours he or she thinks the project will take. Then help him or her write up a list of days, at home, when he or she will work on the project.
Provide home tutoring for special circumstances. Occasionally, a teacher will request parental assistance when a child has lots of makeup work following a prolonged absence or transfer to a new school. If your child’s teacher makes such a request, ask him or her to send home notes about what he or she wants you to help your child with (for instance, multiplication for 2 weeks). By using this approach you are still not taking primary responsibility for your child’s schoolwork because the assignments and request for help come from the teacher. Provide this home instruction in a positive way. As soon as your child has met the teacher’s goal for improvement, remove yourself from the role of tutor. In this way you have provided temporary tutoring to help your child over an obstacle that the school staff does not have time or resources to deal with fully.
Request special help for children with learning problems. Some children have learning problems that interfere with learning some of the basic skills (e.g., reading). The comments so far have assumed that your child has no learning limitations. If a child with a reading disability slips too far behind, the child may lose confidence in his or her ability to do schoolwork. If you have concerns about your child’s ability to learn, set up a conference with your child’s teacher. At that time, inquire about an evaluation by your school’s educational team.

Instructions for Pediatric Patients, 2nd edition, 1999 by WB Saunders Company. Written by Barton Schmitt, M.D., pediatrician.

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