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Self-care skills in preschool children: formation
Self-care skills in children are the first stage of labor education. Overprotective parenting will prevent these skills from developing and may harm the child in the future.
What skills should be in preschool children
At 2-3 years old, the child can already perform many actions. You just need to push him to it.
Self-care skills in children include personal hygiene
Here are the basic things a baby can do at this age:
- Eat with a spoon and drink from a cup. First, he learns to eat solid food with a spoon, and then liquid.
- Get undressed and dressed. He can independently put on and take off shoes, underpants, socks, tights, shorts, pants, skirts, a hat and mittens.
- Monitor personal hygiene. He can wash and wash his hands with soap, towel his face and hands, use a handkerchief as directed.
- Use the pot carefully.
To master all this, you need to develop general motor skills, that is, teach the child to get up and sit down, go up and down the stairs. You also need to develop fine motor skills, visual and auditory attention, thinking.
Building self-service skills
The speed of mastering all skills depends on many factors – on the natural temperament of the child, on the speed of memorization, etc. It is important what example is set to the child in the family, whether the family likes cleanliness. The easiest way for a kid to learn is by repeating actions for adults.
Be sure to accompany any positively performed action with a short praise, like “You did it!”, “Hurray, you did it”, “It turned out great!”. You can also use affectionate gestures and small homemade gifts as praise. Sometimes you can reward your little one with something tasty, but don’t overdo it.
There is a lot of literature for parents to help develop self-care skills. Here are several authors who explain everything in an accessible way – I. S. Avdeeva and M. G. Borisenko.
To teach your child any action, break it down into smaller actions. For example, this is how you can teach a child to wash their hands:
- Stand on the stand in front of the sink.
- Open the water and wet your hands.
- Rub the soap in your hands.
- Rinse off the soap well with water.
- Close the tap and get off the stand.
- Dry your hands with your towel.
Break down any action into such short steps so that the child perceives it quickly and without problems.
Develop self-care skills in your toddler from an early age. This will not only be beneficial for the child, but also make life easier for you.