Behavior of 5 year olds

Research for my topic was definitely more of a challenge for me personally then picking my topic. I knew that writing about my little sister would be an easy task but when this next assignment came of finding research about my topic, I was stuck. Searching the internet about information on five year olds isn’t exactly something your normal teenager does, especially being a guy. To say the least, when I typed “five year olds” into the Google search bar, I came across headlines that I was not expecting to read. Some topics and stories included titles such as “Raising your five year old”, “Sitter charged after 5-year old fatally shoots self while sleeping”, or even “How many five year olds could take you in a fight?”  Of course only one of those titles sounds like something I could actually use, but it was way too feminine. I continued to search and came across many parental articles (many of which were all for moms) until I finally came across an article titled “Child development: 5-6 years” on the website "Women's & Children's Health Network". This article really just broke down how five year olds behave and the ways that they may be changing as they reach this age; this was something I could work with. I read the article and found many behaviors that were true about Bella but also some topics which she behaves the exact opposite. For example, the article said “There will be fewer arguments and fewer tantrums”, which at least for Bella is not true at all. However the article had one main agreement and disagreement that related to Bella which stood out to me more than the others. 

The article claimed to say that this statement was true, “Your child will be mostly independent in dressing and eating but may still have some difficulty cutting with a knife”. I would have to strongly disagree with this in relation to Bella, but it may be true for other five year olds. It is almost a daily struggle in which Bella takes over an hour to eat her food. She seems to struggle with this mostly at breakfast even when it comes to just eating some cereal. Many times I believe it’s just because she’s lazy in the morning and likes to joke around with my brother and I instead. Bella will just sit at the table and tell me “Hurry up and eat your food!” when in reality I’m almost done and she’s still eating.  

The article did have a statement though that I thought was very true about Bella. It said, “They still have difficulty explaining complicated events or ideas and may leave out important bits”. There is at least always once a week where Bella comes home and tells me about a story at school. It’s always funny though because sometimes she’ll be struggling to get it all out and about halfway through she’ll pause and say “I forgot the rest”, and then laugh by herself for a few seconds. Ill then continue to try to ask her what else happened but she just continues to laugh and most of the time says, “I don’t remember I really really forgot” while moving her hands up and down with a priceless expression on her face and her eyes opened wide.

More or less the article had many facts that I was able to relate to in my relationship with Bella, but also some that weren’t true for me. This doesn’t mean that the author isn’t correct, it just didn’t apply or relate to what I’ve experience as Bella’s brother. The article did however open my eyes to new behaviors such as “your child will become very good at sorting things by color, shape and size.” This is something that Bella has not done at all or even something that I would expect her to do. I agreed with the author, disagreed and was also opened to new ideas and behaviors that I will be watching to see in Bella’s behavior.