Being a parent is extremely stressful in a variety of ways. Taking care of children is difficult and it is going to take a high level of patience over the course of time. Your patience is likely to be far lower if dealing with a teenager when compared to a child just entering kindergarten. Early child development is essential to make sure your child stays on track in terms of school and their personal friendships. While it might be tempting, developing an elite young athlete shouldn’t be a priority when compared to other points of development. The following are areas of your child’s development to focus on.
Speech
Infants and toddlers babble constantly when given the chance. The first words learned will likely be mom and dad. Reading to your children and interacting with them for a few hours a day is imperative. You can teach children quite a bit in terms of words simply by sitting down and doing this in an entertaining way. Teaching your children words of things they want like a bottle or to pet the dog is a perfect starting point.
Intrapersonal Development
The last thing that you want is to isolate your child as they will not learn to play with others. Interaction needs to be peaceful and compromise needs to be taught at a young age. Self-control is another aspect of this type of development especially when your child enters school. Teaching them this can be reinforced by sending them to a top preschool as the routine of school can be tough to adjust to. Smiling back at a person would be a great example of this for an infant, while sharing would be something a developed 5-year-old can understand. Emotional development is important at this age as teaching a child that not everything will go their way is a lesson they will learn quickly if not taught. The reaction to this is what needs to be managed as throwing a temper tantrum each time something goes wrong is not an option although some adults still do this.
Problem Solving
A child that is able to solve complex problems at a young age has very little issues in terms of their cognitive development. The problems that a child can solve will differ with age. Exploring while in the infant and toddler stages allows for problem solving to occur naturally. Toddlers are notorious for moving something they can stand on so they can reach something they shouldn’t have. Other complex problems, such as being able to figure out a math problem or putting something together will come further down the line.
Motor Skills
Fine and gross motor skills are important during the first few years of your child’s life. Being able to pick up individual pieces of food for an infant is a great example of fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are when major muscles are activated like when a child stands up or starts scooting around.
Your child’s development needs to be a focus as delays can be managed proactively. With that being said, children develop differently so being a month behind average is not the end of the world.