Your child’s game is now complex. At this age, children often act out ideas they have encountered in school or in the media. For example, you could serve dinner to a diver, a rock star – or maybe even the Prime Minister!

Because your child has more control over their own behaviour and emotions, your child will be better at playing games that have rules, win, lose, and fair play.

Your child also enjoys making friends and being a friend. Friendships give children a sense of belonging and help them learn and practice basic social skills like sharing and negotiating.

Friendships can also be challenging because friends can be bossy or moody at times. Sometimes friends even skip your child. Most of your child’s relationships will be positive, but watch out for signs of bullying.

Your child might also start playing more with children of the same sex.

Feelings

Children want to please the important adults in their life, like parents and teachers. So you may find that doing things “right” becomes very important to your child. On the other hand, your child may seem cocky at times.

Your child is easily embarrassed and sensitive to other people’s views and beliefs. In fact, your child has a lot of empathy when family and friends are in need. But sometimes your child can be very self-critical and may need your help to focus on the things they are good at.

You may notice that your child perceives disaster news and disturbing news better. This growing awareness can create anxiety and fear, so talking about difficult topics can help your child understand things.

Talk and communicate

Children can follow more complex instructions and use language to explore their thoughts and feelings. The average 8-year-old learns about 20 new words every day, mostly through reading or reading aloud.

Your child is now engaging in longer, more complex conversations and you should be able to understand all of their speech.

By age 8, your child is learning to express opinions and tell stories with lots of energy and emotion. Your child can follow a simple recipe, write real-life stories, write an email or instant message, and read independently at night in bed.

Moving

At this age, children enjoy testing their physical limits and developing more complex movement skills, such as walking. B. zigzag, jump down stairs, do cartwheels and catch small balls.

Your child will get better and better at combining gross motor skills like running to kick a ball or skipping while turning a rope. These physical skills depend on how often your child practices them. Structured sports like dance classes, tennis, and soccer all help, but plenty of opportunities to run, kick, throw, cartwheel, and more are just as important.

Fine motor skills are now well developed, so your child can now brush their teeth and do other daily hygiene tasks without your help. Your child can cut out irregular shapes and write smaller letters in the lines of textbooks.

Everyday life and behaviour

At this age, your child’s life revolves around family, school, friends, and extracurricular activities. Your child may enjoy collecting items such as soccer cards, seashells, or small figurines.

Your child's morals and values ​​are evolving, and your child may share strong opinions about whether things are right or wrong. Children also become more aware of what others are doing. This can lead to comparisons like “they can draw better than me” or complaints about siblings getting more of something.

Children are even more independent and want to have a say in what they can and cannot do. As part of that independence, they might enjoy doing more chores around the house—at least sometimes! But spending time with you is still important to them.

At this age, children may also:

• Like to tell jokes and address their skills or behaviour – for example “I can eat 10 hamburgers at once!”
• Write numbers and words more precisely, but you might still confuse some letters – for example b/d and p/g
• Have better reading than spelling skills
• Start understanding the value of money and enjoy counting and saving
• Are more interested in their appearance and in clothing or hairstyle trends
• Be better at spotting the difference between fantasy and reality
• Be interested in using technology and having screen time
• Understand that people often expect girls and boys to behave in a certain way because of their gender.