The US precaution: the colourful examination
In our series on the U examinations, this time we look at the U8. The focus here: Movement, language, logic.
At the U8, the children are around four years old. As with all screenings, they are measured and weighed, there is a hearing and eye test, the immunisation record is looked at and the parents are talked to a little about how social life is going at nursery school.
And then the U8 is a nice examination because you can do a lot of active things with the children: The children have to balance, stand on one leg, they have to draw simple geometric figures and also a house and a person. (Although Doc is rather generous in his judgement here, remembering his own drawing and painting skills ...)
Then there is also a lot of linguistic development. The children look at a hidden object book together and are asked to tell a bit about what's going on. What's important is that they don't have to be able to speak everything perfectly at the age of four. They should form longer sentences, use grammar correctly as a rule and small mistakes are okay. And even if they still say "Dinderdarten" or "Sule", for example, in most cases this is no reason to get nervous at the age of four. Then you can wait and watch and give the parents a few tips.
Then the children have to complete sentences, memorise numbers and repeat nonsense words - all in all, it's a very colourful affair.
Of course, the children are also examined from head to toe and, as always, there should be time at the end to answer questions from the parents. At the U8 check-up, the focus is often on the topics of sleep and cleanliness.
Further interesting tips
School against children
Silke Müller, former headmistress and now one of the most incisive voices for digital ethics and educational justice as an author and speaker, has published a new book: "Schule gegen Kinder" (School versus Children) is a sharp appraisal of our school system and deals with the question of the extent to which our school system prepares children for life in a digitalised world.
Crawling
This will not be an excursion into the realm of insects, crawling is at least as big an issue for parents of small children. Two questions always take centre stage: When should a child crawl? And does a child have to crawl at all?
Gynaecomastia
Today's topic concerns boys aged twelve to 15, or their parents. Everyone else can of course continue reading :-). The topic is called "gynaecomastia" and often leads to boys being somewhat desperate in the surgery and parents being really worried.