ABSTRACT
The period leading up to starting school is one of continuing rapid development. Preschool children don't just learn more skills and knowledge, they learn how to think and act in quite a different way from a 2-year-old. Preschool children also experience rapid emotional development. Their thinking ability enables them to begin to understand their feelings, to control impulses, to tolerate frustration, and to express their emotions appropriately. By the age of 5, children are able to exert a degree of self-management that is quite beyond a 2- or 3-year-old. In part this is due to them understanding the expectations others have of them. For those parents whose children have no obvious appearance of disability, this may be the time when they can no longer hope that everything will be okay. Every child is to some extent different from the other children in the playgroup or the babysitting circle. But it is not always helpful to focus exclusively on the differences.
