Does a 5 year old understand this concept normally?

Question

My daughter is tunring 5 this month. I noticed she has a big problem with understanding concepts having to do with futuristic situations.
Not time, I know she shouldn't understand time completely, what I'm talking about is this for example....

If she gets in trouble for breaking a rule, she gets a time out and/or a loss of priveledges. Then when i talk to her about it, I say, what should you do if your brother is hitting you? And she tells me what she DID do. I say what are you supposed to do, and again she tells me what she did do. She just doesnt understand what I'm asking her so she keeps telling me what went wrong. Even if i ask her what happened first, she still can't tell the difference in my questions.

Is this a normal issue with a five year old?
How can i work on this concept with her?

Answer 1

Time issues are hard, aren't they? Children of this age often have trouble with causality. She may not know "why" she hit her brother. Let's figure out what behavior you want to change. If I'm reading correctly, you want to substitute the hitting behavior with something more appropriate, right? In this case, knowing "why" she hit her brother is less important than giving her an alternative behavior. Also, you want her to see the results of her actions.

Try doing some role play with puppets following the time-honored "I do, we do, you do" model. First, show a situation similar to what she's done with her brother. Have one puppet hit the other, and then show the other puppet being sad. (She will probably think your puppet show is fascinating!) Explain--"The frog is sad because Cow hit him. Look at Frog crying. Frog is sad. Cow, what can you do differently next time?" Then have Cow, or whatever puppet, respond, and try the whole thing again. "Look! Cow asked nicely for the toy! Now Frog is happy! Yea!" It sounds so corny, I know, but it really works. You're doing direct modeling here, which can help her to figure out the different time aspects.

Next, ask your daughter to take a role. Don't have her play a negative hitting role. First, give her a chance to play the victim role and pretend to be sad. "Oh, Frog is sad! Why is Frog sad?" Then, have her be Cow doing the more appropriate behavior. "Cow asked for the toy instead of hitting Frog! Now they're both happy!" If you want to work on the causality, you might talk about why Cow hit Frog in the first place. What did Cow want? (The Blues Clues episode with Green Puppy also dramatizes this very well. I've learned a lot from Steve!)

This will take several repeats. Young children develop a script, or schema, for how events take place. Your daughter has a script for hitting her brother that has developed over a period of time. You want to change that script, which will take time. When this behavior happens again, go back to the puppets for more role play.

Other things that could help your daughter understand cause and effect are picture sequencing cards ("Which picture happens first?") and retelling practice (After reading a story, take turns talking about the events that happened).

Good luck! Your daughter is at the brink of making a big developmental breakthrough, and your careful attention to what's going on is wonderful!

Answer 2

Wow. That's different. Are you sure it's the time concept she's not getting? Maybe she doesn't understand the word "should"?. What if you said "Now, smacking your brother on the head was a BAD thing to do when he hits you. What is a GOOD thing to do?"

I do know it's normal not to understand the concept of yesterday, today and tomorrow at that age. So, if it is the time concept, then that's pretty normal. My kids would say things like "I'm going to visit my Grandma yesterday"

Answer 3

My 9 three hundred and sixty 5 days previous has no idea of time both. i'm consistently reminding him of the time. i will start up quarter-hour earlier it really is time to leave. each and every jiffy i will tell him. Time to get your shoes on. I have even taken his shoes to him to positioned on and nevertheless no longer some thing. each and every morning we are operating down the driveway to the waiting bus. it really is totally complicated. i imagine some human beings merely have an i do not care recommendations-set and there isn't any longer some thing that I have discovered to assist get rid of it.