What is Developmental Milestones in Children
As a parent, you want to know if your child is developing properly. You go to a checklist of skills that psychologists say is normal for your child to have at a particular age. You look for your child to display a skill and breath a sigh of relief when you see it at the recommended age. This model of parenting makes you an observer of your child’s growth. You want more than to be a spectator of your child’s life. You want full participation. Your own experiences in life tell you that life is difficult, and your child needs your help. To be more than a spectator, you need to know why these skills we call milestones are important to your child’s development. In this blog I will go over some milestone skills that you will see in the first three months of your child’s life. We will discuss why these are important for your child’s development. You will learn what these skills do and why they are so crucial. We will look at skills from each area of development as we discuss the development during the first three months.
Developmental Milestones Categories
The cognitive milestone skills your child will be developing are grouped into categories of time. The first category is 1-3 months. We will discuss all the areas of development (cognitive, language, social/emotional, physical) that occur during these months.
Infant Cognitive Developmental Milestones
In the first 3 months your child will develop interests in objects, become fascinated with human faces, but will get bored with any activity that is repeated. These skills are important as they support the development of other critical skills. Your child must learn to live in an environment full of objects and people. The type of learning that your child will need to do is exploratory. It has also been called discovery learning. Your child begins exploring her environment by looking at it. Looking at everything. Remember, the world is new to her. Your child is fascinated with what she sees; this fascination drives her visual exploration of her environment. This interest is an important factor in her brain development.
Babies get bored with activities quickly. This is normal and desirable. Fascination with new experiences is exactly what your baby needs to acquire the information about his environment he will need. At this stage, you child’s attention is designed to be captured by difference. Encourage this natural curiosity by providing new objects for him to examine. Your baby’s short attention span allows her to build a store of experiences with her environment that will evolve into knowledge.
Social Emotional Milestones Early Childhood
Your baby’s introduction to the social world is through her eyes and her smile. At first, some of a baby’s looking is at people as they are part of the object world. People’s faces are quickly a focus of interest. In his visual exploration of the people-objects, your child sees a lot of smiles. At first, they are just another characteristic of these people-objects he sees. But his brain is developing and he acquires the ability to imitate some of what he sees. Soon, when your child sees a smile, he smiles. Now, she is doing more than merely looking but is interacting. All the visual experiences your baby has acquired through looking has helped her brain grow so that she now begins to notice peculiar things like people’s smiles. Interestingly, she finds them pleasurable and enjoys repeating the smiles that she sees.
While your baby’s smile introduces him to the social world, the joyful interactions that his smiles bring from his parents enlarges his emotional world. So far, her emotional life had been largely filled with emotions of frustration and anxiety in response to her physical discomfort. People are much more than objects. Your child begins to discover this when she responds to your smile. The social world is the natural environment for your child’s emotional growth. Making her experience of the social world a positive experience is important for your child’s lifetime development.
Language Developmental Milestones Infants
As your baby looks at your face, she soon distinguishes your eyes and mouth. Since her first moments of life, she has been bombarded by the sounds of human speech. She now discovers where these peculiar sounds originate. As her brain has developed the ability to imitate from her visual experiences, she begins to make some of the sounds she hears coming from your mouth. As she begins to play with these sounds, her social world has brought her into another world, that of language. At this time, she notices these sounds come with actions from you. The sounds she makes begin to be associated with particular actions, and what was once merely crying, changes to different sounds that she makes to communicate her different needs. This is the beginning of her language development. Your consistent responses to your baby’s vocal communications will help her develop in her language skills, her speech skills, and her social skills. As important as making these language sounds is localizing these sounds in space and turning towards them. This turning toward speech sounds, especially those other than your own, enlarges your child’s social world. This larger social world will enrich her world with many new experiences.
Movement Developmental Milestones
Your child’s development can’t wait for experiences to be brought to him. His development has too many dimensions. In addition to the number of dimensions there is integration of these dimensions so that the development in one affects the development in another. Thus, your child’s emerging capacity to physically move is a very important skill. Physical movement will bring her into contact with many more experiences that are necessary for her overall development in all areas. For example, social development will be influenced greatly by your child’s ability to move his eyes and to track objects and people. Exploration of objects begins visually but expands to tactile exploration by grasping. Your child’s ability to turn his head upon hearing speech sounds influences both language and social development. Her capacity to sustain this ability will have to increase for her to engage in the extended social interaction that is necessary for her social and language growth. Thus, the simple physical skills learned during the first three months are critical. These are: turns toward sounds, follows objects with eyes, grasps objects, and lifts head for longer periods. These skills don’t sound like much, but they are the foundation of many others. A parent can contribute much to her child’s development by providing him with opportunities to engage in these skills.
Infant Development Activities
During the first three months of your child’s life, his crying is probably his most distinctive characteristic. It is certainly the most attention getting. However, there are monumental changes occurring in your child’s development that will impact her for the rest of her life. Although these changes appear small, they are some of the most important foundation stones of your child’s development. In the past, parents felt it important to merely observe that they occurred. But knowing how these changes in your child support her development provides you with an opportunity to be a positive part of your child’s development. This kind of participation is called enrichment. You can make sure your child’s naturally occurring development does more than just happen. While you can’t make the development occur, you can expand it.
For example, rather than merely buying your baby toys to explore, explore them with her. Show her all it’s interesting aspects. Remember, these are totally new experiences for him. Talk about the toy. Name all its parts. Tell her what the different parts do. This will expand her language skills. When she makes some of the sounds of the words you are using, praise her. Talk to your child from across the room to encourage him to turn his head toward the sound. Your emotional expressions about your baby and her world provides a model of emotions. When your baby appears sad or angry, name his emotions for him. You can greatly deepen your child’s learning experiences. This added depth of experience will sow positive seeds that will continue to produce throughout your child’s entire life.