4th Grade Parenting Playbook: Tweens, School & Growing Up

Congratulations! You've got a tween.

Hey, it's Natalie, and welcome back to Primary Focus, the parent's guide to elementary school. I'm so glad that you're watching today. We are going to dive into fourth grade. In the United States, we're talking about kids that are nine and ten years old.

Fourth grade is a really interesting grade. For me, personally, this was my favorite grade in elementary school. and that's because my fourth grade teacher was my favorite teacher throughout all the years. Hello, Mr. Johnson, if you're watching. Some call it the chill grade of the upper elementary school years.

but I don't know how chill this grade is because It does get pretty difficult. You're gonna see a huge shift in these grades as teachers prepare children, start to maybe even scare them for middle school and just ask them to reach new heights and try new things that they've never been asked to do before.

We're not just going to be talking about kids academically in fourth grade though. I want to take a look at the whole child. After all, your child is more than just a test score, and they deserve to be treated and appreciated for that. So, we're going to take a look at where they are from a child development standpoint, thinking about what a nine and ten year old needs, making friends together, and of course, talk a little bit about academics.

I enlisted the help of fourth grade teachers from around the country to get this advice and make this video. So some of it comes from my own experience teaching. Some of it comes from a fourth grade teacher that led this project for me.

I even have some submissions at the end with questions that parents asked me as I researched for this. I bundled everything up into my top five. favorite pieces of advice for fourth grade families, a couple of questions that parents asked me along the way, and we'll wrap up with some book recommendations for kiddos this age.

all along, I want to hear what you're thinking about too. So make sure that you leave comments below with your advice for other fourth grade families and questions.

Tip 1: It's a Tween

I said we're talking about the whole child, so let's talk about piece of advice number one. Congratulations! You've got a tween. I can't give you any tips at all until we establish what your child is going through in the fourth grade. Your child will become a tween around the ages of 8 or 9, and this phase will end when they are 12 years old.

they're called a tween because they are in between their early childhood and being a teenager. This is a newer term, but I think it is a term that was a long time coming because tweens are their own special little people. It's very much so Britney Spears, not a girl, not yet a woman, tweens are complicated.

In one moment they can be enthusiastic and goofy, the next moment sullen and deep in thought feeling incredibly anxious about the troubles of the world.

They are capable of so much more now, but they still need guidance and love and support from their families. Honestly, I think more than ever.

Looking into my favorite child development book, Yardsticks by Chip Wood, you might remember that I said in the third grade video, eight year olds grow self conscious for the first time, and they have this shift from wanting adult affirmation to peer affirmation. Well, if eight year olds are feeling this for the first time, nine year olds are a little troubled by it.

It is very common to see nine year olds feeling anxious for the first time. They aren't carefree kids anymore. Their eyes have been opened up to what others might think of them. And they're analyzing the world through a new lens.

Because of this though, they might be interested in the world in a new way. So you can direct this energy into doing things like volunteering and advocacy. This is a great time where you can show your child how to use their concerns about the world to become a little activist

Their anxiety might surprise you, Of course, you should be looking for signs of concern, but what they really need is an adult that will listen to them, but also not go down that road with them.

Help them understand what are anxious feelings versus what is actually really happening. What are things that they are worried are going to happen versus the possibilities of what could happen and the fact that it hasn't happened yet. Show them that there is a lighthearted part of life that we're allowed to enjoy too. People are dynamic. Just because you're worried about one thing doesn't mean it has to take over every part of your life.

You're allowed to be worried about something and happy about something else at the same time.

Now, in contrast to the anxiety that nine year olds might be feeling, ten year olds are a little bit different. That anxiety turns into nostalgia for their childhood. And I don't know if it's the double digits or that they're reaching the end of elementary school, but they can really start to feel nostalgic and longing for their childhood.

Now, as an adult, this can be kind of funny to see them longing for the days of yore when they are very much so still living in the days of yore.

however your child shows this, take it as a last opportunity to go down that road with them, let them be cute, and enjoy it, because they're going to be a teenager before you know it.

Oh, and one last thing here before we move into tip number two. If you have not started talking about their changing body in puberty, it is time. You want to try and start these conversations before puberty happens so that they can be prepared for it and not be freaked out when something happens.

Tip 2: Organization

Okay, okay, though. Tip number two is the great equalizer, and this is something that I think most families struggle with their kiddo on some level or another. We're talking about organization. To prepare for middle school, a lot of schools will begin to departmentalize the fourth and fifth grade classes.

Your child might not have one main teacher anymore. They might have two or even three teachers this is done on purpose because the transition in middle school where your child has five, six, even seven different teachers can be a real shock for kids.

It's also a shock for parents too. It's a lot. In lower elementary grades, a lot of parents become family with their teachers. They're very close with them and they get used to having one point of contact. Transitioning to having two or three teachers is just as hard on parents sometimes as it is on the child because it's, it's just hard to understand who to contact.

This is why organization is really important here. Now, most schools will have a preferred agenda or planner that the kids use, but if they don't, I highly recommend that you get your child to start using an agenda or planner. I've tagged some suggestions below

your child will not naturally know how to keep up with this, and so you're going to have to work with them to check it every day, make a system to cross things off, maybe make a system of things that need to be prioritized, and help them understand what it means, including what it means to study, which we'll talk about at the end of this video, number one question that parents ask me about. help your child from a distance keep up with the things in their agenda. If they need to study for a quiz, help them understand how many days it takes to study for that quiz. If there is something due on Friday, help them understand we should not be thinking about this Thursday night at 9pm.

If something is due on Friday, we should be doing a check in Monday, make sure we have the materials. Even if we're not going to start until Wednesday, this is not a natural process. I think about myself as an adult, about how much maintenance it takes to keep up with my own schedule and just know that your child is going to make mistakes.

They are going to forget things. Things are going to happen. Let these consequences happen to your child, but also be there to catch them and help them move forward onto the next thing. I do think this is a really appropriate age to let your child. But feel what it's like to not turn in their project, or feel what it's like to choose not to study when they knew that they should have studied.

Yes, we want them to succeed, but I would much rather your child learn these lessons when they are 9 and 10 years old and in the 4th grade than be learning them their sophomore year in college or out in the real world where the consequences are a lot steeper for making these mistakes.

Tip 3: Math

My third piece of advice starts to feel a little bit personal for me and this zooms in on fourth grade math. Despite fourth grade being my absolute favorite grade when I was a kid, it was the grade where my weaknesses in math really, really, really added up.

A lot of topics in math just get a lot harder. The fractions become more complicated long division, multiplying larger numbers. It just starts to be a lot. And so if your child does not have their mental math down, they will feel it.

I know for me, I remember starting to learn long division in fourth grade and having that realization that long division wasn't anything crazy. It was just using your math facts again and again and again. But you can't solve a division problem like this if you don't understand basic multiplication.

if I could go back and tell my sweet little nine year old self, it would be to memorize those darn multiplication tables, memorize those division tables, get really strong with addition and subtraction mental math, because you will need it, and these things will be the foundation of all of the math moving forward.

I've got a couple of games that I want to recommend to you when I'm looking for a game I'm always looking for something that is no prep or low prep Print it put it together once keep it in a plastic baggie And you can pull it out and you can play for five minutes. You can play for 30 minutes

These games are going to be my simple card game, a game called Kaboom and a game called treasure hunt. Now I'll show you a little bit with my deck of cards, how I like to practice multiplication you're simply just going to lay these down. You're going to pick them up randomly and you're going to practice multiplying.

You could also do this for addition or subtraction as well. I'm not gonna show you Kaboom and Treasure Hunt here, but I have links to easy, free printables where you can just get this going prep one time, keep in a plastic baggie, and use again and again.

Tip 4: Reading Comprehension

My fourth piece of advice came resoundingly from fourth grade teachers that I was talking to, and this is improving your reading comprehension. Now, something that you'll find in reading comprehension is that you're really using the same skills again and again, but the skills get more complex as your child can access more difficult books. In fourth grade, you're going to see a big jump. And in fact, I recommend you go back to the third grade video and watch what I say about reading and then compare them to the books that we're seeing in fourth grade.

They are longer, there are a lot fewer pictures, the vocabulary jumps up. So, some of the comprehension skills that they're going to need, identifying story elements, summarizing a text, understanding the main idea and details if it's a non fiction text.

These are all terms that you've probably heard before, except your child is now reading maybe a two, three hundred page book, or they're reading a dense paragraph with no pictures and it's something they've never heard of before. The difference here is that they're really able to jump in, they know deeply how to read, and they can dive into something that is age appropriate without needing support from the teacher. Lot of fourth grade teachers like to use RACES to guide students . RACES stands for Restate the Question, Answer the Question, Cite Text Evidence, Explain what it means, and and summarize it.

Now, I've got five points here, and if you put that together, that is definitely a small paragraph. And that's what teachers are looking for when kids are answering either verbally about a book or they're writing down answers about the book.

No more one word answers. No more pointing to the page and saying, look, it's here. They need to be able to explain these things in detail. Citing the text is so important at this age, if your child is not doing that already, get them used to using the book to answer the question.

That reading stamina at this age in third grade, we were looking at 30 minutes of independent reading. Your child should be able to read independently for 40 minutes, up to an hour at this age. That is a long time. So if you don't have a daily reading practice built into your life, you should absolutely get one.

It doesn't matter what they're reading. It's just that they're able to sit down and get lost in a book for close to an hour.

If you want to dive more into reading, I will have some book recs at the end of this video. I think it's important to watch that part because I want you to see the jump from books in 3rd grade to 4th grade.

Tip 5 Using their voice

Number five, using their voice. In the fourth grade, this is a time where your child can start to hold and express more complex opinions, research those opinions, and your teachers will be pushing for them to do this. This is actually where things can get But really fun. Do you remember towards the beginning I said that this is an age where kids can start to get into volunteering and advocacy and different causes? This is where using their voice comes in. We're going to see this in writing and we're going to see this in digital projects, both in school and things that I would encourage them to do at home.

So on the school front, you're going to start to see your child asked to do more lengthy projects. No more show and tell or build a leprechaun trap. More things like Make a canva or powerpoint presentation to defend your opinion. Make sure to have some charts, some graphs, some pictures, and a bibliography.

This can be intimidating for kids, but I assure you this can actually be really fun. And this is where you see kids start to run with these ideas and even be interested in making their own things outside of school time. What you can do to support them is to have your child get familiar with programs like Google Slides and Canva play around with making presentations.

They're going to be typing a lot more in class. Unfortunately, typing lessons don't come with the expectation of learning how to type. Total weakness when it comes to American elementary schools. They're going to hand the kids a Chromebook and just expect them to learn. Try using websites like typing.

com and kids type. I've got them linked down below. These are free typing programs to get them used to it. If they love having a little bit of screen time, why not direct it into something more useful than just watching YouTube videos all day? I mean, you should be watching YouTube videos all day, like Primary Focus.

Have you subscribed yet?

And what I would do is just help your child build a love of writing. Are they really into stories? Are they really into graphic novels? Encourage them to write their own stories. Are they really passionate about a different topic? Are they interested in reading the news? Have them write their own newspaper.

Encourage them to take on these projects that will make them love writing. From here on out, the writing will get more complicated. The debates, sharing their opinions, supporting and defending their opinions will get more difficult.

If your child has more confidence, if they enjoy doing these things more, it will be that much easier for them.

Question 1:

okay, now I said that I have a couple of questions. Let's talk about question number one. I was actually asked this question multiple times, so I think it must be on the fourth grade parent's mind. My child is at an age where he needs to start to study for things. Can you explain the concept of studying, what it can look like, and tips for parents to teach the skill and just not be pushing material at their children?

Ah, yes. Studying. I remember when I was probably in fourth or fifth grade being told for the first times that I needed to study for things and writing study in my planner and. Not really knowing what that meant. There were multiple times where I brought the books home with me and I tried to study and then sat with the textbook next to me while I watched TV.

Great studying, right? In fact, it probably wasn't until the end of high school that it started to click to me what studying was and why it was so important. And yet, for years and years and years, I had been told to study, but never understood what that meant. And honestly, a lot of your homework is gonna start turning into study for the quiz.

So what does that mean? for you as the parent, if you are understanding that your child needs to study, the first thing that you need to understand is what to study for. I don't know the answer to what you need to study for, and if you don't know the answer, I would start getting in contact with the teacher.

The good news is, a lot of teachers have pretty repetitive things, whether it's a science test every six weeks, or a fact fluency test every other Friday, typically there is some sort of a routine and pattern. So if you reach out once or twice asking, what are we studying for? I think you're going to get a good answer that will repeat itself all the time.

Please don't be afraid to ask. Yes, we push independence on the kids at this age, but it is totally appropriate to follow up and be like, Hey, I've got half of the information here. Can you fill me in? My baby's trying their best, but they clearly don't know what they're just supposed to tell me about this.

Once you know what to study for, you want to think through with your child what are the materials that we need for this. Is it flashcards? Is it notes? Is it that they actually missed school for a few days and they were sick? So you might need to, do some worksheets together.

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Then show your child what that schedule looks like. Now, a lot of studying at this age, we're looking at maybe a 10, 15, 20 minute review something that they already should know about, and we're just practicing a little bit more.

So, that might look like setting a timer and saying, we're gonna do these five problems and then go over them. Peppermint. Pepper. Pepper. Pepper. Pepper. Oh my god.

So this will end up being a little bit vague because you could be studying for a variety of things, but what I would do is set the timer. and maybe we're doing ten minutes of practice problems. Hey, I want you to do these five math problems, and then you and I will go over them together.

or you can go look at the answer key Maybe it's, we've made flashcards and I want you to spend ten minutes going over the flashcards and quizzing yourself. It's going to depend on what it is, but pick that task that's lasting them 10 to 20 minutes, and then build in about 5 minutes of review after that to go over what they did wrong.

And then from there, I would stop. And you want to do this a couple of nights in a row. Studying is not what it looks like in college where you were pulling an all nighter and you were working for hours at a time. They will get to that one day, but for now it is drills, it is review, it is go over the stuff and go through the motions of what this looks like.

I would not send your child to study alone at this point. Now, could they be working at the table while you're, finishing up your own workday or helping another child with homework? Absolutely. I think they're capable of doing some of these things independently.

But sending your child up to their room to study on their own is just gonna end up looking like me studying in fourth grade, which is TV on in the textbook sitting next to you.

Question 2: Friends

Okay, and question number two. My child is definitely acting like a tween. I notice some tension when friends come over. She still wants to play with toys. Some of her friends will join in, while others seem a little too cool for it.

Last weekend, I heard a friend make a comment, You still play with toys? How can I navigate these situations? This is difficult, a lot of kids go through this age of that balance between like, yeah, I'm still a kid and I want to play with toys, versus I want to be cool. What I would say first is, Please let your child play with toys, and let them play with toys as long as they want to. One day, she will put her toys down and never pick them up again, and that's gonna be sad. But, that said, I know kids can start to be judgy at this age, and it's not because they're mean kids, it's probably because that tween, who made a comment to your tween, had somebody make that comment to them. Something to highlight here is that playing can really change for kids this age.

When I go through the book recommendations in a couple minutes here, you're gonna see that the books are not so much about fantasy and dragons eating tacos anymore. A lot of them are about 4th graders and 5th graders going through their day at school and so playtime changes too.

While some kids will really, will enjoy fantasy and totally indulging in the toys, other kids are just trying to reenact what other kids are doing. Playing might change. this would be a great age for you to be introducing crafts, activities, games, and projects when kids are coming over to play,

Redirect them a little bit. Making friendship bracelets together. They can learn and film a dance. we used to make music videos when we were kids, now the kids are making TikTok videos. Maybe they're baking or cooking something together. Find an activity or a challenge that they can enjoy together.

And then, part two of playing, maybe they do get into the toys, but they're warmed up, they're laughing, they're talking, and they've had an activity that both kids can agree is something challenging and fun. and then we can move into the toys or whatever they want to do in their free time together.

And, last, I don't know if you need to check in with your child yet, but if they do start to seem upset by this friend, maybe it is time to check in and see if this is a friend that they actually want to be hanging out with. The last thing we want is for your kiddo to feel like a fool in their own home.

So, they should be spending their Saturdays with people that lift them up and make them feel good, and not those kids that are going to be judging them and are too cool for toys now.

If you've got questions about fourth grade, I hope that you drop them below in the comments. We would love to help you out. I also do check in calls with parents, so if you've got an issue going on with school, whether it is academic, something going on with the teacher, or something going on with your kiddo, please reach out to me.

I would love to set up a check in call with you and give you personalized support.

Book Recs

Okay, so let's look at some book recommendations for fourth graders. Before we dive in, I just want to show you some of these books here. There is a really big jump from third grade reading to fourth grade reading. When I showed you my book recs in the third grade video, most of these books books were maybe hitting 100 pages, they were in the high 70s, 80s, many of them have illustrations or just a lot of colorful imagery throughout, they're very, very repetitive and the plots are more interesting than say a picture book or younger child's reader, but they are still

predictable, the vocabulary is smaller. Fourth grade is where we are really starting to see kids reading these books that are borderline young adult novels. These books that I'm going through are much longer. Most of these are over 100 pages. Some are 200. I even have one in here that is pushing 300 pages. Yes, they're still double spaced and they have larger font, but this is a pretty big jump from what early chapter books look like. I think it's important to note here that if your child has a series that they love reading or they're really interested in a book that's maybe not quite at this reading level, don't stop them.

Keep them reading it. I wouldn't make you stop watching the Housewives series just because you're older now. If they love it, let them read it. But it should be an interesting test for you to see if they can access books with this jump in reading level

I'm going to highlight a couple of books here, but I have more linked below You know, I always appreciate it when you shop with my affiliate links. First up here. I've got a couple of fantasy books

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown. This was a New York Times bestseller, and it was just an Oscar nominated movie. This is the beginning of a short series of books. If you ever read the book Hatchet by Gary Paulson, this is just like Hatchet, except the main character is a robot, and it is a survival story of a robot.

I think it's really a good thinker for kids as well. Next up here is the beginning of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. This series is so beloved by kids. I know a lot of people start reading these books to their children at a younger age, but 4th grade is around the first time that kids can really access these books on their own.

I want to point out here, JK Rowling is not my favorite person. she really is not an ally to the LGBTQ plus community.

That said, The books are incredible, so you're going to have to figure out what your appetite is, for supporting her. My recommendation for you is to check these books out from the library or get them second hand. The good news is these are in such wide circulation, I don't think you should be paying money for these books anyway because everyone in America has at least one copy that's just sitting on a shelf.

Some graphic novels here. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. Ultimate favorite series. This is so cute. Again, these are books that your child might have already been reading on their own at home, but this is the age level that they are designed for. It is written about tweens. It is written about starting middle school.

And so if your child read them when they were younger, this could be a time to reintroduce the books. And, of course, I have to mention The Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell. These books are fast reads. They're very cute. they're also graphic novels. They're written in a journal format. Everything's on lined paper throughout them. these books definitely feed into teenage girl stereotypes.

so have a look through. that you do want your child reading, I would say that these books read like the plot of a Disney Channel original movie. we've got a lot of girls like talking about being teenagers, a lot of cute stuff, some of the girls have crushes on characters.

but there's not really any real romance or dating going on in them. If you have a girl that loves watching TV and hates reading, I think these would be a really good jump for them to dive into a series.

Speaking of being relatable, these are some novels that I think are really relatable to kids. One thing that I really noticed As I was browsing recommended book lists and asking teachers about favorite books for their students is that we are moving away from a lot of fantasy into real life and kids that are going through their day to day life at school.

and I think this really shows, developmentally how they are moving into being tweens and how they are thinking more about what others are feeling. they're less interested in total imaginary worlds and more about day to day friendships I really like this book. It is Stand Up, Yumi Chung by Jessica Kim. Our main character, Yumi, dreams of being a stand up comic, but of course she is a shy, kind of awkward girl, who's just balancing real life problems, like making friends at school, getting teased

She has a case of mistaken identity and gets the opportunity of a lifetime. time to start her standup career. Some other books that I would check out, Loser by Jerry Spinelli, He has so many great books for kids that are 4th, 5th grade and up.

I would double check titles because he does have some for older children as well. he's a really great author for tweens.

The Wayside School series, you might have grown up reading these yourself. They are adventures of kids in the elementary school and all the shenanigans that they get up to. This is a really fun one. Getting into nonfiction, I recommended these in the third grade series, and I'm recommending them again in the fourth grade series, and these are the Who, Is, and Was series.

They are biographies of famous people, they also have a series as well going through historical events. in third grade, I think kids would need support from an adult . In fourth grade, I think a child could access these completely independently.

So even if your child started getting exposed to these when they were younger, I think you can reintroduce them now and have your child experience what it's like to read a biography.

These are just a couple of my recommendations. I do have some more down in the description. I would love to hear from you though. Do you have a 4th grader with a favorite series? Maybe you have a favorite book you remember from 4th grade. Drop it in the comments. I only read books that people recommend so the more the merrier.

As we close out here, I just want to highlight what a special grade fourth grade is. It's a huge year of growth and independence for your child. I think you'll be amazed at how they transform from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. I remember this year so fondly because it was a time where I was finally trusted to do things independently. I finally could do things more independently. as kids start to become 9 and 10 years old, they have a renewed interest in the world around them and a certain kind of zeal for life.

Let me know what you're thinking in the comments below. Do you agree with what I'm saying? Do you have advice that you want to give? Questions? We are here for you and I would love to know what you're thinking. Thanks for watching Primary Focus. My name's Natalie. I'll see you next time!