Frances L. Ilg (1902–1981)

With the usual caveats that every child is an individual, the authors identify typical developmental behavior for Fives: a good grasp of their own capabilities, and a desire to stay close to home, especially to parents. Less wild and adventuresome than Fours, sometimes even "angelic" or "too good to be true," so "enjoy it!"

The "Your #-Year-Old" series, despite being full of outdated attitudes (especially toward gender, and spanking) is still worthwhile for its guidance on child show more development.

In addition to the usual "Equilibrium/Disequilibrium" chart (p. 10), this book contains a "Withdrawal/Expansion" chart, showing "withdrawal" at ages 3 1/2, 5, and 7 years (p. 81)

Quotes

If school attendance causes home behavior to go to pieces, something is wrong. (66)

Nobody likes to be told "I hate you," but when it is said by the very young child it usually means little more than "I'm unhappy, sad, mixed up, tired, frustrated, and I'm going to take it out on anybody or everybody in sight."
As a rule it does not mean "I have thought things over carefully and I really do hate you." (106) show less

I love this series and this research institute and when we hit the half-birthday point in the year I like to read ahead to see what's coming. The later editions haven't changed much at the core and I like the older editions for gems like "can walk 2 blocks on their own to a friend's house or a store" as a marker for kindergarten readiness at age 5. Because in 1980 at age 5 I was trusted to walk 2 blocks to the corner store at the end of my grandparents' street but would never dream of show more sending a 5 year old alone to a store now! Well, the corner store is a mall that's kind of scary for teenagers but still. show less

From the Gesell Institute, it covers the basics of 2 and 2 1/2 and seems pretty much right on from own experience as a parent. What is nice is that it's short. The main lesson I took is that two-year-olds are really pleasant. It's as they approach 2 1/2 that they become difficult. Oh, and the indecision thing is totally normal.

I fortunately checked this out from the library instead of buying a copy as this is quite dated and badly organized (children seem to vary much more in development time frames than this book implies as far as I can tell so organizing based on such short time periods makes things confusing). The only value to me was the laughs I got from "Stories From Real Life" section full of non-PC concerns about mamma's boys become homosexuals and backhanding children to prevent them from biting or spitting.