5 Years | Ages & Stages | Health & Wellness Library | University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital | Cleveland, OH

Help prepare your child for school. Read books about starting school and talk about what your child can expect. Help your child learn the alphabet and identify letters.
Encourage your child to tell you about his or her day and to tell you if someone is hurting or bullying him or her at school.
Be patient while your child forms thoughts in sentences. Try not to interrupt. Find opportunities to model behaviors like patience, respect and remorse, when appropriate.
Limit screen time to one hour each day. Be careful about the programs and advertising your child sees. Choose media that is interactive, non-violent, educational and prosocial. For more information refer to How to Make a Family Media Use Plan in healthychildren.org.
Children who watch too much TV in preschool years can show delays in attention, thinking, language and social skills. Instead of TV, encourage your child’s creative imagination with drawing and playing. Children should not have a TV in the bedroom.
Set aside time to actively play with your child. Regular physical activity is fun and healthy for the entire family. Shoot for 60 minutes/day.
Children this age should be encouraged to contribute around the house. Assign reasonable responsibilities and chores to your child (tidy the bedroom, dust, set the table), and offer praise when the job is done well.
Download the Bright Futures Activity Book for an award winning way to teach your child about health and safety.

Plan for regular family mealtimes. Offer healthy, kid-friendly options at every meal to minimize struggles over eating.
Preschoolers grow in spurts and their appetites come and go, so they may eat a lot one day and hardly anything the next. This is normal, and as long as you offer them a healthy selection, they will get the nutrients they need.
Pay attention to portion size. Smaller children need smaller portions. Don’t expect children to “clean their plates.”
Limit candy and junk food. Avoid soda, tea, coffee, sports drinks, juice and flavored drinks.
Offer fruits and vegetables at meals and as snacks. Be sure your child is drinking milk or eating milk products to maintain healthy bones and teeth. There are many choices for those who won’t or can’t drink milk. Lactose free milk, soymilk, tofu, sardines and calcium-fortified cereals, waffles and oatmeal are options.

Never slap or hit your child; it will teach him or her to hit others. Research shows that spanking, slapping and other forms of physical punishment don’t work well to correct behavior. The same holds true for yelling or shaming. Beyond not working, it can damage a child’s long term physical and mental health.
Remember to praise your child for good behavior.
Set reasonable and consistent limits. When using discipline, the priority is to teach and protect your child, not to punish.
Predictable routines help your child feel safe. Make bedtime a calm and loving time. Read with your child and talk about the next day to help prepare your child. Avoid electronics in the bedroom. Most need 10 – 11 hours sleep/night.
Help your child learn to say how they feel. You can help by saying things like, “you look like you are feeling sad.” If you guess incorrectly allow your child to correct you.

Help your child brush his or her teeth twice a day with a pea-sized amount of toothpaste with fluoride. Flossing is also encouraged.
See the dentist every six months for routine checkups.

Always supervise your child in the house, car, yard, and when at play near driveways and streets.
Use sunscreen on your child when playing outdoors.
Watch your child carefully around water. Swim lessons are encouraged.
Helmets must be worn when riding a bike, even with training wheels, and scooters, skateboards and roller skates.
Tell your child to never cross the street without a grownup.
Teach your child about stranger danger and how to be safe with other adults.
No one (outside of trusted caregivers and healthcare providers) should ask to see your child’s “private parts” or ask for your child to see theirs. Teach your child not to keep secrets from parents.
Some communities offer “Safety Town” classes to children entering kindergarten.
If you have a gun in your home, be sure the ammunition is kept separately from the weapon and that these are both kept safely locked away.
Have a working smoke alarm on each floor of your home, and a carbon monoxide detector in the hallway near each sleeping area.
Children who have outgrown the rear-facing weight or height limit for their convertible seat should use a forward-facing seat with a harness for as long as possible, up to the highest weight or height allowed by their car safety seat manufacturer. All children whose weight or height exceeds the forward-facing limit for their car safety seat should be in a belt-positioning booster seat in the back seat of the car.

Caring for Your 5-Year-Old