7 and 8-Year-Olds: Milestones, Activities, Gear, Dad Tips, & More
Child, big kid, or adult? Depends on the minute. This age is ripe with transition socially, emotionally, and cognitively.
Here’s a comprehensive guide to 7 and 8-year-old milestones, self-care skills, activities to do with your child, toys and gear, and ways to master being a dad.
7 and 8-Year -Old Milestones
7-Year-Olds
A sense of body image has begun
Boys will tend to play with boys and girls play with girls
Draws a person with 12 body parts
Starting to understand words with multiple meanings
Starting to understand figurative language
Can understand the concept of minutes, hours, days and months
Can articulate thoughts and feelings and speak in complex sentences
8-Year-Olds
8 is often a turning point for kids where they ask for less help and want to spend more time with friends
Understand abstract information such as money, time, and math problems without having to count or group the numbers.
Can count by 2’s and 5’s (e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20…)
Knows the difference between right and left
Draws a person with 16 body parts
Can write a complete story with legible and smaller handwriting without fatigue to the small muscles of the hands
Better understanding of empathy
Difficulty understanding complex issues. Continue to think in black and white with situations being great or terrible, hard or easy, wrong or right, etc.
Self Care Skills
7-year-olds
Packing a bag for school and outings (with prompts)
Opens zip lock bags, lunches, and food packaging
Showering independently
Comprehending money
Time management skills and can tell time
Makes basic meals
8-year-olds
By 8 years old, kids should be independent in all of their self care.
Should be participating in chores like dinner prep and cleanup, laundry, and cleaning the house
Activities To Help Your Child Thrive
Have a dude’s day or a father-daughter day. Begin to plan an annual day (such as their half birthday) where you and your child have 1 on 1 time together. Plan it together with your child having the majority of the input and you being the guard rails. When the day arrives focus on the time together and not on the task. You’ll never forget it.
Work on phone etiquette. Kids are at the age where phone use is becoming the norm. Have discussions about basic etiquette including phubbing and speakerphone. While yo’re at it, address other screen-based etiquette including with texting, facetime, and social media. Remember that the most important way to teach it is to model it.
Geocaching. I can’t say I’ve ever done this one but I’m very intrigued.
Red Flags
It’s important to note that babies develop at different paces. If you’re not seeing these 7 and 8-year-old milestones then talk to your pediatrician.
Stuff
Toys (with a purpose)
Here are some toys recommended by an occupational therapist to help your 2-month-old’s development.
A bike. Look for a bike with 20” wheels if your child is in the 4’0”-4’5” height range and 24” wheels if your child is in the 4’5”-4’9” height range.
RoyalBaby Kids Mountain Bike (16”, 20”, 24”)
A helmet: What to look for in a helmet:
Size. Measure your kid’s head circumference to determine the best size.
Weight. Lighter is better for kids.
Safety. Rest assured that all bike helmets sold in the U.S. have a CPSC safety certification. There is a new technology called MIPS (multi-directional impact protection) that many helmets now incorporate. It is a thin liner inside the helmet which allows 10-15mm of sliding rotation of the head in all directions to decrease the transfer of the motion to your brain. There's debate over how much, or even if, this added layer of safety works but with the number of brain injuries I've seen as an OT, the extra cost is worth it.
Giro Tremor MIPS Unisex Youth Cycling Helmet (47-54cm, 50-57cm)
Giro Hale MIPS Youth Cycling Helmet (50-57cm)
Bike fitting: Your kid is growing fast so make sure you know when and how to adjust their seat (a.k.a. saddle) height. This is a great quick guide from Prevelo and here is a more advanced guide from Two Wheeling Tots.
Gear (that you actually need)
Survival kit. This (surprisingly inexpensive) kit is a great pack to keep in the car. It comes with the essentials like a blanket, flashlight, and first aid gear but it also has the stuff you’ll need in those more extreme situations such as a shovel, hatchet, and fire starting tools.
Sunrise alarm clock. As your child gets older they’re more likely to sleep in later. Not a big deal on the weekends but a very big deal on the weekdays. Use a sunrise alarm clock to help with a natural transition. I wrote about the importance of light in this article and kids and sleep in this one.
Dads
“The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams, and aspirations he sets not only for himself but for his family.”
– Reed Markham
Dad Focus
Productivity and Time Management. The new dad issues of newborn nights and constant kid sickness are far behind you but that doesn’t mean you’ve yet mastered managing your time. You’re rapidly approaching your peak earning years (about mid-50) and your 7-9 year old’s after-school and weekend activities schedule means you’ve got a constant balancing act on your hands.
You’ve likely had a similar productivity strategy in place for many years so changing it won’t be easy but the friction to begin and create momentum is the harest part of any habit change so if you can muster through that phase then spending more time on the things you want to spend time on is in your future.
There’s no shortage of hacks, productivity tools, and books written on the topic but everything will work different for everybody so start by knowing exactly what you want to change and then dive in a good starter pack:
Books
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Articles
Dad TIps
Don't do anything for your kid that they're capable of doing. This includes chores. If they can make their lunch, do their laundry, and get up on their own then they should do it on their own.
Make the time for your kids and be present when you’re together. 75% of the Time We Spend With Our Kids in Our Lifetime Will Be Spent By Age 12.
Teach sports skills. One interesting takeaway from the article, Should Kids Specialize in Sports, is that kids with the highest number of head turns in a game have better performance/abilities overall. Less “this is your spot for this position” and more “there are two positions in hockey; with the puck and without so get to a spot where you can be with the pick.”
Teach your kids to cook. Have them pick dinner for the night from a book of healthy options such as The Paleo Kids Cookbook. Aim to get through every recipe in the book as you make it a weekly tradition and a way to bond with your kid.
Model good character. This article of My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character provides a great list of ways to determine whether the person you’re dealing with has character. Flip the script by evaluating and modifying your character and model it for your kid.
Resources
Article:
Should Kids Lift Weights? (The Ready State)
How to Foster Healthy Body Image in Children (Mark’s Daily Apple)
The importance of performance in youth competitions as an indicator of future success in cycling (Interesting study on predicting elite cyclists in teens which can probably be extrapolated to all sports)
Podcast Episode:
Your Child's Brain on Sports (Raising Good Humans)
Book:
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Your child is nearing pre-teen life. Embrace the time together, and every other 7 and 8-year-old milestone that comes along the way, because the push away is coming sooner than you realize. You’ve got it good.
Got any suggestions that worked for you and your kid at this age? Leave them in the comment section.
