5 THINGS BEFORE THEY TURN FIVE

• Family’s importance:
  A child’s first social interaction is with their parents and family. So, the family plays a crucial role in their development of security, affection, and encouragement in their everyday life. Children these days learn the importance and role of the family in schools by making family trees and doing role plays etc. but in my view, all that is vague unless the parents show the same affection for their parents that they expect from their children. Spend some quality time with your child in your daily lives. This will help them to build their social skills in the future. This includes taking care of them, taking permission from them, and sharing about their day-to-day happenings.
  
  
• Gender Equality:
  No matter how many posts with hashtags of gender equality are there on social media, the gender stereotypes can be seen all around us. The only way to eradicate this inequality is to raise our children breaking the stereotypes. When children see that only women in the house cook, wash dishes, or do laundry, they assume that boys are not meant to do these chores. In the same way, in families, where only males are the bread earners, children are reluctant to see their mother or sister working outside the home. So, the whole family should be on the same page to break these stereotypes. There should not be any gender-specific toys. Children must be taught to do all their tasks on their own irrespective of their gender.
  
  
• Good Touch Bad Touch:
  The sexual crimes in the country have raised to an alarming number. So, we must do our part to protect our children from any child sexual abuse. Learning to differentiate between the kinds of touch that cares for them and the touch that makes them uncomfortable is the need of the hour. The kids must be introduced to good and safe touch and bad touch or unsafe touch by the parents as soon as they are able to understand the words. Many videos are available to assist parents in carrying out this task or the help of counselors may also be taken.
  
  
• Sharing:
  Sharing is a virtue that parents instill in their young ones for ages. It actually helps them to befriend other children and cooperate with elders besides making them good children. This is one of the must-be-taught life lessons for every child. Children easily acquire such habits if family members tell them about turn-taking during playing games with siblings, talking about it before playdates with cousins and friends, and whenever they are eating something together.
  
  
• Value of Money:
  Children must be familiarized with the concept of managing money once they are able to count. It is observed that some parents find bringing toys and expensive clothes for their children as a way of expressing love for their children whereas it is totally wrong. In the future, children are going to value everything based on money or prices. A small handmade gift can sometimes hold many more emotions than a purchased expensive gift. Moreover, they will not value money if they get more than enough of everything without even asking or wishing for it. Finance can be taught to children by giving them a little allowance to put into their piggy bank weekly. It will be better if it is associated with earning that money by doing some tasks or showing good manners. Later they can be taken to a shop to buy something with the collected money. This will enable them to understand the exchange of goods and money. Also, always teach them to not spend all of what they have but to always save a little amount in their bank.

Although, there are different ways to imbibe such habits in children as listed above but the best one is always to lead by example. If our own actions contradict what we teach or instruct our children, they are never going to follow us. Moreover, children are like apes, they follow what they see. So, be their role model. Also, there must be many other things that parents discuss with their children by this age, I would love to know about them in the comments section.

About the Author:

Manjot Kaur is a Vice-Principal of a leading school in Punjab, India. She has been teaching Science to secondary school students since years. Being a teacher as well as a mother alongwith the passion for writing directed her towards blogging. Her interests include studying psychology and doing art and craft projects.