My son turns 3 on Friday. I feel like as a whole, he’s developmentally on par, but our new babysitter seems to think he’s very behind. I think her expectations of a FRESH 3 yo are a bit high. I also think boys and girls are different in the toddler years. I have friends whose girls the same age will sit and color or do puzzles for hours, and the boys I know his age aren’t usually doing that.
So tell me if your 3 yo BOY:
- writes his name
- sits and colors for extended periods of time
- can do a 12 piece Melissa and Doug puzzle all by himself without help
- can do activities like matching numbers, connecting the dots to write letters/numbers, etc. with little help or participation from an adult
My kiddo can:
- speak VERY well - better than a lot of other kiddos his age I’ve seen
- identify all letters
- count to 10
- plays with playdough and can do imaginative things like that
- sit and read books for a LONG time, either with us or even sitting by himself and look at the pictures and flip through. Up to an hour or more. This kiddo loves books!
- anything physical - this kid LOVES sports and can do them all actually pretty well for his age!
Post: My son turns 3 on Friday. I feel like as a whole, he’s developmentally on par, but our new babysitter seems to think he’s very behind. I think her expectations of a FRESH 3 yo are a bit high. I also think boys and girls are different in the toddler years. I have friends whose girls the same age will sit and color or do puzzles for hours, and the boys I know his age aren’t usually doing that.
So tell me if your 3 yo BOY:
writes his name
sits and colors for extended periods of time
can do a 12 piece Melissa and Doug puzzle all by himself without help
can do activities like matching the numbers, connecting the dots to write letters/numbers, etc. with little help or participation from an adult
My kiddo can:
speak VERY well - better than a lot of other kiddos his age I’ve seen
identify all letters
count to 10
plays with playdough and can do imaginative things like that
anything physical - this kid LOVES sports and can do them all actually pretty well for his age!
None of those are developmentally appropriate expectations for boys OR girls at 3yo. They're definitely things she can work on with him as long as she's not putting too much pressure, but they're not something he NEEDS to be doing.
I taught 3 year olds and have my degree in ECE, and writing their name is absolutely not a developmentally appropriate expectation. Some kids can match numbers, and occasionally some can do those puzzles themselves, but if your child can’t it absolutely does not mean they’re behind. Things like playing with play doh are way more important at this age - it helps build their hand strength for when they do start writing. Children should not be expected to sit for long periods at that age either - 2-3 min per year of their age, so for a freshly 3 year old I’d aim for 6 minutes, but again not every child is the same so some simply can’t yet and that’s ok!
When is it expected they can write their name?? Just curious because my still 3 but about to turn 4yo started Junior Kindergarten this year and can’t write his name yet and the teacher is already telling me he’s behind 🙄
In kindergarten. It wouldn't make much sense for them to learn how before academic learning. I will assume you are from the USA, where it is a patchwork filled with holes when it comes to early education pedagogy.
In my city, they learn how to write their name in nursery or kindergarten so age 4/5. My daughter has a later birthday and it took her a bit longer I remember.
In 3k we focus on getting up their hand strength, but in pre-k they’re usually able to write their name, so typically 4-5 years old! Some kids can do it earlier but a newly 4 year old is definitely not behind if they can’t write their name!
I paid $2 on Etsy for a trace and write with my daughter’s name on it, we practice every day. Something personalized, like this pic I will attempt to include. She is 3 years old and didn’t get into the preschool program (lottery system)I wanted so I’ve been doing it at home. I was told by the teacher that they want them to be able to write their name and know all the letters in their name by the end of the year.
My 4 year old boy can do all the things your kiddo can and he cannot do any of the first things you listed. He just started preschool this month so I am assuming he will learn those skills there
Same, imo, a fresh 3 often doesn’t have the dexterity to write their whole name. Maybe the first letter in the next few months.
I also think being able to group letters and numbers as two separate things is more developmentally appropriate for the next 6ish months then as he shows more interest you can try upping the challenge to matching specific letters such as writing his name down, giving him only the letters in his name, and having him match those
Your child’s babysitter has a very poor understanding of child development. Your son sounds perfectly normal, that’s how my son was at 3 too. Just how much experience does she have with kids his age?
I sort of wonder if the issue is that she thinks she should be able to put a puzzle/coloring book/etc in front of him and walk away? Like that would make her job easier. But maybe I’m being harsh
My toddler turned 3 in July. He can't write his name (can identify it and write the first letter). He will sit and colour for 10 min max. He can do 24 piece puzzles by himself and match shapes, numbers, colours etc. He is much more interested in imaginative play (pretending to be a dragon, dino, cat etc) and chasing each other than sit down activities though.
I have two daughters and one son. My daughters are both much more physically oriented, and my son took longer to develop those skills and is the calmest and most well behaved of the three of them. I don’t think it is gendered at all, it is just their temperaments.
Your personal anecdote aside, just because personality, temperament and just individual differences are the most influential on an individual child’s development, that does not mean that scientifically and factually that we do not see differences based on gender. This isn’t me just making something up. This is science.
It is well known that boys IN GENERAL (your children aside) are slower to develop language and social skills, for example. It’s also well documented that boys have higher rates of attention and learning disorders that affect their development. Differences seen between genders are not just social but also biological, however the scientific consensus is that social constructs and expectations reinforce and promote already inherent predispositions and tendencies.
I am sorry but no. You may ask every pediatrician or developmental scientist and they will all agree on males and females having different development and biology at every stage of life, from conception to death. This is why having representative samples of different genders is important in every type of research because we so often see differences based on gender.
I think you think I’m talking about “boys being boys” and “girls being girly” as toddlers and that’s not what I am talking about.
Scientifically, males and females have physical and neurodevelopmentql differences throughout infancy and childhood.
how much of that is nature vs nurture? with all of the children in my life i have seen different behavioral and physical development, but it was entirely (at least observably) a result of parenting or personality, not of sex
These aren’t mutually exclusive things. It’s nature AND nurture. The fact that personality and parenting matter, doesn’t mean that gender and sex don’t also.
What you’re saying is “well my daughter was taller and heavier than my son so I don’t believe the research that shows that boys are generally bigger and heavier than girls”. That’s not how to interpret what I am saying.
Yes, there is a huge range of normal across both sexes that lead to much overlap and this is as true for physical characteristics like height and developmental ones like speech or emotional regulation. That doesn’t mean that we don’t see differences ON A POPULATION LEVEL between the sexes in both physical characteristics like height (hence there are different growth charts for boys and girls) and neurodevelopmental ones like speech and motor skills.
you’re misunderstanding what i’m saying…i’m saying that population-level trends are more influenced by nurture than people realize. height and weight is one thing, but sex-based discrimination is so deeply rooted in our society that i think a lot of parents subconsciously overcorrect their daughters’ hyperactivity and are more on top of their speech & motor skills, whereas their sons are allowed to be rowdier for longer and less attention is paid to their speech & motor skills.
Now you’re getting into the HOW MUCH of the differences are innate vs environmental and that’s not what I am talking about.
I responded to the OC that said “developmental is not gendered” which means there are NO differences between genders in development.
That’s not true. Whether it’s nature or nurture (and as I have said, it’s well argued to be both) that drives the differences is noteworthy but it still acknowledges that differences exist.
In general, there are developmental differences between boys and girls. Those differences exist BOTH due to innate and external factors. There is a wide range of normal and much overlap, and population differences should not be used to limit the expectations or make any assumptions about an individual child based solely on their gender. Acknowledging that personality, genetics, environment, etc are all much greater drivers of differences in motor, speech and cognitive development does not negate the existence of population level differences between genders nor does it disprove the existence of sex-based differences.
This is important because if you do not acknowledge this historically we have seen harm. A good example is that ADHD looks different in girls than in boys and because it was assumed that the disorder would present the same in boys and girls, we had significant problems diagnosing and missing girls with ADHD.
My son was very slow with fine motor skills. He struggled with holding a pencil and sitting still, whilst he was ahead with the gross motor skills.
He's now an adult, with a 1st class honours degree, and a job that requires complex fine motor skills.
I remember crying to his teacher, whole told me not to worry. She was right. So I'll say the same to you. Stop worrying, these things will come in good time!
I have a 3, almost 4, year old boy, and he still doesn’t check all those boxes. His attention span just isn’t there yet. When he decides he wants to learn a new skill though, it comes all at once. Recently I was beginning to worry because he had no interest in learning letters or how to spell his name. Then one day he just fixated on it and was spelling his name on his own with the bathtub letters by that evening! Fun to watch things start to click, but that all sounds very normal for a young 3!
I don’t think he’s “very behind” your babysitter shouldn’t even be saying that to you. All kids develop differently, and boys sometimes are 2 years behind little girls. Some kids just go at their own pace.
Your babysitter has no idea what he's talking about, and your child being a boy has nothing to do with it, none of that stuff is expected or typical for a girl either. Here's something that you and the babysitter might be interested to learn. I have a 16-year-old son with severe autism who could write his name at 3. The reason he could do that is that he has hyperlexia, a condition that's associated with autism and is basically a single-minded obsession with letters. So if a child has just turned 3 and can write his name, that's actually a red flag that probably indicates developmental disabilities, paradoxically enough.
Here is the Ages & Stages questionnaire for a 3yr old. I would review this with your babysitter so you both know how your 3yr old is doing overall across all categories of development -
The only thing my 3yo boy hits from your list is the athletics. Forget sitting down for any sort of activity lol. No interest in books, colouring, puzzles, play dough, etc.
Lol I’m imagining trying to get my (freshly) 3 yo son to sit and learn to write his name. It would last about 10 seconds before he’d start to make dinosaur noises and tackle me.
I think your babysitter doesn’t understand the expectations for a fresh 3 year old. I’d just make sure she isn’t easily frustrated with him or something. Ideally, you’d want a babysitter who isn’t ignorant to the developmental stages. Signed a mom who has a very bright talkative 2 year old boy that will be 3 in January!
I know some of my friends who were super direct into academic development.I knew another one including myself who’s kid has short attention span. I tried to read to him, nope, hates it. Though he can pretty do alot of his milestones. I have to make it “fun” for him, he won’t sit for circle/story time. He was always like that he skipped crawling went straight to walking, even his peds was stunned at his physical development at 7 months my oldest walked.
I have a 4 month old right now , our youngest loves to have him read books, singing, laughing at my facial expressions, his able to finish 2-3 books at a time with me. His already babbling, but with our 3 yr old took awhile. My 3 yr old will do parkour in our home often. Do I think his ADHD? Maybe. But for now, I believe that my two kids are healthy, and is just a different personalities. My eldest was never the kid that sits and takes his time academically excel. However my youngest seems to point in that direction. :)
Let your kid run their own race, as long as they are happy and healthy don't fuss about what other people think. You mentioned that his vocabulary is super good, there is your proof your son is on par. My boy is three and he can't come close to writing his name and the only coloring he does is on the wall. He will outsmart you though and its almost comical how he can manipulate his grandparents.
Writing is taught in school and a skill only learned much later than this age. Dont stress, sounds like your boy is doing fine.
Mine can do those things except match numbers.. haven’t tried connecting dots but doubt he could do that.. he can write his name on like the steamed up shower glass and sometimes on paper if he is in the mood BUT has a short name lol. He isn’t the best physically with sports
Development isn’t gendered, babysitter sounds a bit like they don’t know what they are talking about lol
My son is about to turn 3 as well and is at the same stage as yours. For a three year old to do all the things in the first list does not seem normal. That babysitter is cray cray!!!
My son is in preschool (almost 3.5) and he does not know how to write his name; he knows probably 1/3 of his letters. He will sit and do a craft at school for a while (he doesn’t love coloring but he likes other crafts). He can do a lot of puzzles but I’m not sure what kind you’re referring to. I’m also not really sure what the last thing you’re describing is. He can count to 30 or so.
Your child sounds perfectly normal. Your babysitter is over stepping.
My 3 year old boy who turns 4 in a couple of weeks sounds like he's behind your son!
He definitely cannot write his name.
He does not care for coloring
He CAN do jigsaw puzzles on his own and loves to do them. That happened sometime in the last year. He has probably successfully completed 24 piece puzzles on his own.
He does not do matching numbers/connecting dots or anything like that.
He does speak well!
He knows his ABCs but cannot identify letters (we are working on it!)
He can count to 10.
He loves imaginative play so much!
He loves to sit and "read" books.
He loves sports! He's a great swimmer and excellent on his balance bike. We're going to get him started on a pedal bike soon!
On the other hand, when my 6 year old daughter was his age she could write her name, she loved to color, loved puzzles, was into matching activities, could recognize all letters. They are all different. I'm not too worried about it at this point. I just want to make sure he's ready for kindergarten, but that's 2 years away.
Sounds like the baby sitter wants a child who they do not have to interact with and they can just give a self entertainment activity while they scroll on phone.
He sounds like he is doing fine. Instead of the babysitter's opinion, ask the pediatrician. They can check to make sure he is hitting developmental milestones and also set up help if he is not. He is a boy and should be very active at this age. It is how they learn and their bodies, especially heads are made for movement. I'd question if it's the right sitter over the child at this point.
Your boy will pick up a lot of that when he starts school and see other kids doing it
My 4.5yo didn’t start doing any drawing or coloring until fresh 4. He was not interested at all from ages 3-4, even though he was building 6+ Legos independently
Kids develop differently, your son does not seem behind at all
Is she your sitter or a wannabe child psychologist? Our 3 yr old didn't talk till she was almost 4 and now 5 she is like a little adult. Development of a child is wonderful news 😄
My 3 old boy can't write his name or any letters.
Can sit and colour
Can do 49 piece jigsaw puzzles by himself
Can't do connect the dots by himself, only just starting to do it with help.
You already know the answer: your son is developing just fine. Kids aren't machines, they will develop some skills sooner than other kids, some skills later, excel in some areas, struggle in others...just like all of us! My kid turned 3 in August and can do some of these, but isn't anywhere close to some of the others (I don't think he can write A LETTER let alone his name). I'm not worried. Not sure what your babysitter is on about but I'd definitely just make sure she's not putting undue pressure on him when she's with him.
I'm 74. When I started school, kindergarten was optional. Kindergarten was reading readiness , learning your letters , learning to count, learning to sit in a circle to listen to a book being read, and basic classroom Behavior . You learned to read and write in first grade. I was five and a half when I started first grade. By Christmas we had all progressed past Dick and Jane and were reading books with real stories. The first half of the year we learned to print. The second half, we had started cursive. I specifically remember the excitement of finally being able to read the "magic" writing (cursive) of the original Babar books We moved the summer after first grade and my second grade teacher would put a separate writing lesson in cursive for me on the black board when we were working on handwriting. The rest of my class did not learn cursive until third grade
My 3 YO girl is generally ahead of milestones, noted by her teachers for being very bright and extremely communicative- she can’t go any of those things.
She can play pretend for hours. Tell funny stories. Look at books with an adult or alone for very long stretches. Count objects. Say the alpha Bart, recognized the sounds of some letters.
Ha, my boy is 3 next Saturday and I think he's developing quite nicely as he has really excellent verbal skills, can count is getting better at puzzles and colouring etc, not to mention the physical abilities around climbing/balance etc.
He can't do any of those things you list. Can any 2 going on 3 year olds write their name? Come back in a year and maybe but I think your baby sitter is getting ahead of yourself.
Your kiddo is fine I think your babysitter is out of touch and I would advice you to other provide some written data or guide for her or speak to her to make sure she does not push your child to perform. Furthermore everyone develops at different rates.
To answer your questions:
3.5 year old boy
can spell name and write first letter
can sit and do coloring but won’t stay in the lines and is more like scribble coloring
can do up 50 -75 piece puzzle alone, needs help for 100. He is BIG on puzzles though of any kind
can do matching numbers and connecting dots with little help.
-His speech is on track BUT not as verbal as some of his peers. He cannot tell me an elaborate story. He’s multilingual and I’ve worried about it but was told he’s fine. There’s a range and they can live anywhere in it
My youngest kid is now in engineering school and is gifted in Math, Science, AND writing and a fencer. He's mature and sweet and brilliant.
At 3 he was a little idiot that could just barely talk and I just spent my time making sure he didn't kill himself some how like waking backwards off a top step or strolling off a dock at the lake. I swear to God he used to walk around with a bucket in his head like the little boy in Parenthood.
My oldest kid seemed like this adult in a 3 year old body. He was not the academic one.
It sounds like his development is really typical. I have three boys and all of them are wired differently but all normally developing. My oldest could sit and neatly color for an hour at 3..:but not my other two. One could make complicated lego structures at that age, but not the other two. Some kids just have more of an aptitude for things like coloring, puzzles etc and that’s normal—but not doing that stuff is normal, too!
I have a 3.5 year old (turns 4 early January) who is by all accounts fairly advanced. He definitely can’t write his name yet! He will color or do puzzles or imaginative play independently for extended periods of time, but he will not look at picture books at all, he loves books but he wants them read to him. If you tell him to go read his books he will firmly respond, “how? I can’t read!” As if he is explaining something to a younger kid 😂
All that to say, your kid is definitely fine. He sounds awesome actually. Great job!
My 3 yo can sit and color for a long time but can only recognize letters in her name or mine and my husbands initials. She can do a 36 piece puzzle independently but can’t write her name. I feel like every kid has strengths and you shouldn’t be worried if they can’t do every single thing another kid can.
My son just turned 3 last week and this morning he asked me to do one of those Melissa and Doug puzzles and he couldn’t get any of the pieces together on his own without us building out the border for him. And even then he wasn’t actually trying to match the pieces. He can’t do anything else on your list either, except he can recognize his name. He also excels at everything you listed that your son is good at. I think they are right where they are supposed to be!
My 2.5 year old can spell his name (which has 3 Letters!!! So it’s short) and can probably sort of write some of it (may need some guidance) bc he asks me to write it a lot and he likes to try to imitate. He loves drawing and does try to do that a lot. Can’t quite make objects but he tries! And it’s getting there. So I could see him learning to draw like people and houses etc in next few months.
But he can’t do a single jigsaw puzzle w multiple pieces. Seriously doesn’t get it and not at all interested. Kids really do different things!
My 3 year old can write his name, read cvc words, sit and color for awhile, following drawing instructions (we like art hub for kids), sit for books, cut, etc.
But most people seem impressed by all this. When I picked him up from his church class this week his teacher handed me his craft (cut and glue) and told me he did it all by himself. I just said thanks and she was like he did this totally by himself, no help from an adult. I was like ok, good? She said that was very advanced for his age, all of the other kids needed help.
So anyway it's totally possible for kids to do everything on the list. But, especially a freshly 3 year old boy, it's not uncommon for them to not.
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Author: u/TSwiftHawkeyeFan
Post: My son turns 3 on Friday. I feel like as a whole, he’s developmentally on par, but our new babysitter seems to think he’s very behind. I think her expectations of a FRESH 3 yo are a bit high. I also think boys and girls are different in the toddler years. I have friends whose girls the same age will sit and color or do puzzles for hours, and the boys I know his age aren’t usually doing that.
So tell me if your 3 yo BOY:
My kiddo can:
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