Promoting the nutritional health of a preschooler

 Like the toddler period, preschoolers are not time of fast growth and are not likely to have ravenous appetite.
 A sense of initiative or learning how to do things, can be strengthened by allowing a child to prepare simple
foods, such as making a sandwich or spreading jelly on toast.

Preschool Nutrition Requirements

 Food selection should include variety and based on Myplate recommendation.

Do preschoolers need to take supplementary vitamins?

 As long as the child is eating foods from all five food groups, and meets the criteria for a healthy child such as
being alert and active with height and weight within normal averages, additional vitamins are unnecessary.

A vegetarian Diet

 Usually colorful and therefore appeals to preschoolers.

 Vegetables, fruits, and grains are also healthy snack food.
 Vegetarian diets, usually deficient in calcium, vitamin B12, and vitamin D. so, a child in vegetarian intake may
need a supplemental source.
 Promoting the development of the preschooler in daily activities

 Dressing
 Preschoolers prefer bright colors prints and so may select items that are appealing in colors or prints rather
than matching.
 Sleep
 Some preschoolers may refuse to go to sleep even though they are tired because of the dark and may wake
at night terrified by bad dreams.
 Exercise
 Preschool period is an active phase, so preschool plays tend to be vigorous.
 Roughhousing helps relieve tension and should be allowed as long as it does no become destructive.
 Promoting active games and reducing television watching can help children develop their motor skills and
prevent childhood obesity.
 Hygiene
 Preschoolers can wash and dry their hands adequately.
 Although preschoolers can sit well in bathtub, they should not be left unsupervised at bath time.
 Children this age are not paragons of neatness and may not clean their hands, fingernails, and ears
thoroughly. It often need “touching up” by a parent or older siblings.
 Care of teeth
 If independent toothbrushing was not started as a daily practice during the toddler years, it should be
started during preschool.
 Teeth Grinding (Bruxism) may begin at this age as a way of “letting go” similar to body rocking, which
children do a short time each night before falling asleep.

Promoting healthy family functioning.

 An important role of preschooler parents is to respect creativity.

 Part of encouraging creativity is encouraging vocabulary building.

Decipline

 Preschoolers have definite opinions on things such as what they want, where they want to go, and what they
want to wear and these opinions may bring them into opposition wit parents.
 A major parental responsibility for this is to guide the child through these struggles without discouraging the
child’s right to have an opinion.
 “Time-out” is a useful technique for parents to correct behavior without physical punishment and allows a child
to learn a new way of behavior without extreme stress.
 Time out periods should be as many minutes long as the child is old, so 3-5 minutes is appropriate for
preschoolers.