What is Child Development?
Child Development is the process of building a child’s physical development, their social and emotional functioning and their cognitive capability. Children learn to understand their emotions by starting with the basics. They can recognize faces and make sounds. The brain development of a child is crucial for their development, as cognitive, emotional and executive skills are heavily dependent on brain functions.
Most children acquire their abilities around the same age, unless they are affected by developmental disorders. Experts divided child development based on these findings into five stages. As milestones for child development, they also included specific abilities like the ability to walk and comprehend complex sentences. These milestones are to be reached by children at certain ages or stages of development.
Newborn Stage
The first two months of life is called the newborn stage. During this stage, babies can respond to sounds and watch their surroundings. They also calm down when they are spoken to or picked.
The environment that a child grows up in before and shortly after birth has a strong influence on their development. The newborn stage is therefore considered the most crucial age for child growth. It is important for the child’s development that parents cultivate a close bond with their newborn through skin-to-skin contact. In addition, newborns need a lot more sleep because their brain and physical development are accelerating.
Infant Stage
Infants are children between two months and one year old. During this stage of development, children are able to move around more easily, sit without assistance, and pick up objects. Children in this stage also put their feet, hands and other objects into their mouths.
Infants can recognize familiar faces and respond to their names. They communicate by mimicking sounds and gestures. It is important that parents talk to their children constantly at this stage in the child’s development.
Toddler Stage
The toddler stage is the time between the first year of life and 3 years . This is the fastest age group for child development because toddlers grow physically at an accelerated pace and adapt to social situations more quickly. It is expected that they will be able walk on their own, use a fork and spoon without assistance and drink from an opened cup occasionally.
This stage is a time of emotional and social development for a child. At this age, children begin to socialize. They tend to get away from their parents while still being present. Children will copy the play of other children or their toys to try and connect with them. They are affectionate, they notice when other people are upset or hurt, and they look at the faces of their parents to see how their reaction is to a new circumstance. At this stage of development, children learn to recognize and manage their emotions.
Preschool Stage
Preschool children are those between 3 and 5 years of age. At this age, physical development is heightened, and motor skills are refined. Children can now throw and catch a football, run and jump, and even dress themselves.
They also develop their social and cognitive abilities during this phase as they experience a world that is different from the one in which they live. They can distinguish between desired and unwanted behaviors in certain places, like libraries, playgrounds and places of worship. It is also expected that a child in preschool be able maintain a conversation with at least three back-and-forth exchanges.
The School-Age stage
The longest stage of development for children is between 6 to 17 years old. This stage is when children develop their cognitive skills by learning complex concepts and different structures of knowledge in school. At this stage, it’s more likely will improve short attention span. At this stage, children are also beginning to form their opinions and become more independent.
They can also express complex emotions like jealousy, love and hate through sentences and gestures that are well developed. In this stage of development, children are expected to have the ability to make meaningful friends and to connect on a social level. During this period, they should keep a regular sleeping pattern because sleep has a profound effect on the development of children’s learning, physical development, and emotional development.
What Are the Developmental Milestones for Kids?
Each stage of child development has a number of developmental milestones. Child development milestones are defined as certain abilities that a child should have by a specific age, for example, walking, developing empathy and more.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies developmental milestones for children into four categories.
- Social/Emotional milestones: This refers to the development and maturity of a child’s emotional ability. This includes whether the child can show several facial expressions and understands how to react in new situations. It also involves noticing other people’s feelings and comforting them when they are upset or hurt.
- Cognitive milestones: Cognitive Milestones are based upon the learning, problem-solving, and thinking skills that children attain according to their age. They include learning colors, finding objects that are not visible, opening a lid or demonstrating simple problem solving skills, such as standing on a stooge to reach something.
Reading to/with children and engaging in science activities can help them achieve these cognitive milestones, and improve their analytical thinking.
- Language/Communication Milestones: This category concerns communication skills and how children use language to express themselves. As examples, children can make sounds other than cry, imitate the way others call things, reach for objects they desire, and enhance their vocabulary.
- Milestones in Movement/Physical Child Development: The physical development of children is about their growth according to age and how they use motor skills and executive function. As an example, holding their head still, standing up on their own, walking, drinking out of a cup and not spilling it, using a fork and spoon correctly, etc.
New CDC Guidelines on Child Development Monitoring
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that every child receive developmental screens in their 9th month , 18th month , and 30th month . The CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics have updated their guidelines on child development milestone monitoring , for the first update since 2004. This guideline is designed to help improve early detection of autism and other developmental disorders in children so that families and children can receive the best possible care.
The CDC and AAP have also added new milestones and questions with open-ended answers. The milestones are based on what 75% children should achieve by a certain age. In the previous guideline, was only 50%. If a child does not meet a certain milestone, this is likely a sign of a developmental problem.
Eight positive parenting tips for healthy child development
Stress or unease as well as positive influences can have a significant impact on a child. The impact of parenting style on child development becomes even more important in this light. Here are some tips for healthy child development.
- Showing Warmth & Affection: Parents’ unconditional love is one of the most important aspects in child development. Show them your affection through hugs, compliments and acknowledgment of their achievements. You should let them know that you love them no matter what.
- Communicating With Your Child: Healthy child development is heavily dependent on a healthy parent-child relationship. Communication is the key to this bond. Talking to children during the early stages of their development enhances both their cognitive and language abilities, and helps strengthen the bond later.
Experts claim it is also important to respond predictably to children in any situation so as not cause confusion or stress that could negatively affect child development.
- Limits and Routines: Setting limits in the home helps children develop a sense stability, which is beneficial to their development. Managing Screen Time and setting limits for outdoor play or snacks will also improve your child’s self-control. They learn to manage their time.
- Quality time together: Children need to spend quality time with their parents. You could try to create quality time with your child. You can bond with your children by doing things like reading, painting, playing games and taking trips. You can do simple experiments to get your children interested in science.
- Instilling a Sense Of Responsibility in Children: It is important to instill a sense responsibility among children at an early age. Problem solving activities for children, and assigning your child appropriate chores can help build their sense of responsibility.
- Allowing Mistakes: Removing obstacles from the way of a child doesn’t do them any good. Before interfering in the child’s development, parents might allow their children to make errors and figure out what works for them. You can use learning styles and find out what works for you.
- Promote Healthy Behaviors: You may encourage your children to adopt healthier behaviors, such as participating in physical activities or eating healthy foods. A healthy lifestyle directly impacts child development!
- Being an Effective Role Model: The way you live your life and who you are will influence your children. While constructing their own identities, children tend to imitate their parents. Being a good example for your child is important to their development.
What can you to do support your child’s growth?
There are many ways to help your child develop. You may want to think about benefits of technology for kids, as the digital world is evolving every day and technology has many positive effects on child development.
It is important to note that STEM education improves cognitive and analytical skills. STEM education does not only improve child brain development, but also emotional and social growth. Analytical thinking, for example, helps children recognize their emotions and respond to new situations in a healthy way. The arts also provide a place where children can express and process their emotions.
To support your child’s growth, you can encourage your children to learn stem using twin. We offers a variety of live shows, educational video, and interactive games that teach children a wide range of subjects, from physics to programming. Children can also experiment with Twin kits such as autonomous vehicle kits and coding kits.
We also provides a monthly skill report, based on the activity of your child in the app. This report contains information about your child’s skill usage, interests, subjects that your child excels at, personalized activities recommendations, etc.