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The five-year-old: what can you expect?
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This coming October, Mendel will turn five. Time for my husband to pull out some of his trusted parenting books: The Gesell Institute’s Your Five Year Old is on top of the pile. (The pile contains six books; why does he think I’m going to read them all?)
“Sunny and Serene” is the subtitle, and unless our son has a complete character overhaul over the next few months, which I doubt, that phrase contains false advertising. He is sunny all right, but there’s nothing serene about it. In fact, I have half a mind to write the publisher and ask them to change the title to ‘Sunny, but definitely, absolutely, positively NOT serene’. I know; too long, and who would want to buy that book?
“It is a pleasure to tell you that with most five-year-olds, some very good times are ahead,” the book starts out. “Five wants to be good, means to be good, and more often than not succeeds in being good.”
Sure, I believe that most kids want to be good, and not just at this age. What child wakes up in the morning and says: “Today I am going to be an absolute monster, and drive my mother to drink”? They never intentionally act the way they do, at least my kids don’t; they go purely on instinct. Don’t ever ask your children why they kicked the cat or swallowed your favorite lipstick; they don’t know, and you won’t get an answer.
My husband, the child therapist, has been on a DNA kick lately. “Almost all human behavior is genetic,” he claims, “You can teach a kid some skills or some manners, but their basic personality is going to be the same whatever you do. You may as well stop beating yourself up over it and just try to enjoy the ride.” I know therapists make these general statements only for the purpose of research and discussion, but if you ask me, it reeks of a massive cop-out. I love cop-outs; next time either one of my children acts like an ape, I can just blame their DNA.
The good behavior of the five-year-old stops after roughly six months, the Gesell Institute warns: “Five-and-a-half is characteristically hesitant, dawdling, indecisive, or, at the opposite extreme, overdemanding and explosive. Behavior is all too often characterized by the opposite extreme, which we saw earlier at two-and-a-half years of age. That is, the child may be extremely shy one minute and then extremely bold the next; very affectionate, and then almost without warning very antagonistic.”
Like your child telling you he loves you and you’re the best mommy ever, only to kick you in the shins five seconds later because you’ve refused him candy. Or claiming he wants to play with his sister, and then bugging her until she is ready to sell a kidney just to get away from him. Like begging for a week to go to skate daze, only to sit on the sidelines the whole time, complaining how boring it is. Drawing you a picture, hanging it on the fridge, and as soon as someone compliments it, taking it down and ripping it up.
Wait, that sounds exactly like Mendel now. And he’s nowhere near five-and-a-half. So is he behind or is he ahead? Luckily, I don’t have to worry about these things. After all, authors Louise Bates Ames and Frances Ilg include a disclaimer. They tell us about behavior that might happen, does not necessarily happen all the time, or may never happen at all. “Do not take too seriously what anybody tells you (and that includes us) about how your child will behave,” they say. Which I find so endearing I might just decide to read the whole book after all.
Curious about the other books on the pile? You got it.
Bruno Bettelheim, A Good Enough Parent
R. Greene, The Explosive Child
Wendy Mogel, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
Ames, Ilg, and Baker, Your Ten to Fourteen Year Old
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