Fine motor skills may also vary widely and influence

Fine motor skills may also vary widely and influence a child’s ability to write neatly,
dress appropriately, and perform certain chores, such as making beds or doing
dishes.
There will be significant differences in height, weight, and build among children of this
age range. It is important to remember that genetic background, as well as nutrition
and exercise, may influence a child’s growth.
There can also be a big difference in the age at which children begin to develop
secondary sexual characteristics. Girls will grow buds of breasts at ten or eleven,
her hips will take shape and she may begin to menstruate at eleven or twelve. Eleven
is an early start for a first period and even at twelve and thirteen girls are not always
emotionally prepared and welcoming of this powerful sign of approaching fertility.
When her periods begin the girl may be proud and excited to be growing up like all
her friends or she may, in the back of her mind, be anxious about approaching
adolescence and the complications that this introduces into her life. Her biology
demands that she be a woman soon - whether she likes it or not. How she feels
about it will be strongly affected by her impression of how well adult life has treated
her mother and the women close to her. Womanhood may seem rich and pleasurable
or scary and hard.
As for boys, the physical changes and emotional challenges are not so dramatic as
they tend to mature physically a little later than girls. However around twelve some
boys experience masturbation and nocturnal emissions. Boys of this age can be very
competitive; and success at sport, or his social position in the playground may be
close to his heart and a source of concern for him.
As you already know the head of the newborn is 1/4th the size of the body and that
of a 6-8 year old is about 1/6th of the body and by adulthood it will become 1/8th
of the body. In other words, the head becomes smaller in proportion to the rest of
the body as one grows.
In middle childhood along with gross muscles, fine muscles develop rapidly.
1.2.4 Development of Teeth, Bones and Muscles
i) Teeth: By the time a child is 3 years old, the child has 20 teeth and these are
the milk teeth. But by the time the child is in middle childhood, he/she has 28
teeth and these are all permanent teeth. An adult has 32 teeth.
ii) Bones: By middle childhood, all the bones in the body are formed and
henceforth, these continue to grow in size and strength. Bones become brittle

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when there is too much calcium in them and they break easily. During middle
childhood, there is sufficient calcium in the bones to make them strong. This is
one reason why the activity level in middle childhood is high. Strong bones
provide better anchorage to the muscles.
iii) Muscles and Fat: All bones are covered with fat and muscles. Girls have
more fat around their bones than muscles. At seven to eight years, girls start to
gain more fat than muscles on their arms, legs and trunk, whereas boys have
more of muscles than fat. This is why they have more strength. Boys can