Early Childhood E-Newsletter

Spring 2012

Support and Encourage Your Child’s Development at Key Milestones

Parents play a vital role in helping their children develop and learn but every child is unique. While children do things in their own way on their own schedule, there are certain developmental milestones that all children share. By knowing what to expect at these milestones, and increasing your understanding of your child’s development, you will be well-equipped to encourage and support your child.

A child’s development is typically measured in five areas:

Cognitive – This involves thinking skills, including learning, understanding, problem-solving, reasoning, and remembering.
Social – This includes a child’s ability to interact with others; have relationships with family, friends, and teachers; cooperate; and respond to the feelings of others.
Speech/Language – This is the ability to speak using body language and gestures, communicating, and understanding what others say.
Gross motor – This is the ability to use large groups of muscles to sit, stand, walk, run, and so on; maintaining balance; and changing positions. Gross motor skills typically develop before fine motor skills.
Fine motor – This is the ability to use the hands to eat, draw, dress, play, write, and do many other activities.

Here is an overview of activities you can do with your child to encourage and support his or her development in each of these five areas.

There are many activities that you can do to encourage cognitive development:

Talk with your child while doing daily activities
Read to your child
Play music and sing songs
Encourage your child’s curiosity
Promote pretend play
Provide opportunities to learn about counting, measuring, and arranging items by shape and size.
Give your child simple chores and praise him or her once the tasks are completed.

Activities that you can do to encourage your child’s social/emotional development include:

Talk about feelings and name feelings such as happy, sad, mad, or frightened. Help your child put feelings into words.
Set limits that are firm, fair, and consistent.
Find time to spend “special moments” with your child.
Teach your child problem-solving skills.

You will have many opportunities throughout the day to encourage speech and language development:

Talk about the things you see while running errands in the car or grocery shopping.
Read books, sing songs, and teach nursery rhymes.
Use everyday items, such as cereal boxes, labels on canned goods, and newspapers, to show your child new words.
Encourage attempts at language by adding words to the child’s simple sentences.
Talk about things being “over,” “under,” “in,” “on,” or “behind.”
Ask your child “what if” questions to encourage their curiosity.

To help your child’s gross and fine motor skill development you can do the following:

Provide materials and objects that the child can manipulate, such as toys, balls, cardboard books, puzzles, and other simple objects from around the house.
Provide opportunities for painting, pasting, clay modeling, sorting small objects, building with blocks, copying designs, and drawing.
Encourage your child to play outdoors. Find opportunities to bring your children to outside facilities, such as a local park or the YMCA, so they can be active on play equipment.

‘Minnesota Parents Know’ Has More Child Development Resources

If you would like more detailed information on your child’s development, the Minnesota Parents Know website provides information and resources to help your child grow, develop, and learn from birth through high school. There is a link to the website at PACER.org.

Turn to the Baby Center for Information on Development by Age

The Baby Center is another excellent resource for parents of young children that provides information on development and key issues by age (birth to 8 years). There is a link to the website at PACER.org. Milestone charts, common questions and issues, and resources are provided for each age group. In many cases, milestone charts are organized by skills that most children of this age can do, emerging skills that about half of children this age can do, and advanced skills that only a few children this age can do.

Resources

For more information on PACER’s early childhood resources visit our website at PACER.org

PACER Center is a parent center for families of children and young adults with all disabilities. PACER provides individual assistance, workshops, publications, and other resources to help families make decisions about education and other services for their child or young adult with disabilities.

Its Early Childhood Family Information and Resource Project offers free information and resources to Minnesota families of children with disabilities from birth through age 5. The project helps parents of young children who receive early childhood special education to learn about their rights, roles, and responsibilities. It also provides parents with information that can help their children develop toward their potential. The project is funded by the Minnesota Department of Education.