Development is split between many phases such as prenatal, pre-school infant phase, middle childhood, puberty, early adulthood, among others. In this case, the first year of child development is vital for the latter stages of growth. The reason is that children need to achieve the milestones at the infant stages to do well in the other phases of growth. Children develop cognitive skills at this age as well as gross motor skills, fine motor skills, social and emotional development and evolving language.
The first year of child development is an exciting phase for the child and the parents. The child learns to say the words dada and mama at this phase, although it is just babbling and gaggling. Children develop firm like or dislike for strangers and comfortable behavior when they are in the company of their caregivers. Children do not exhibit growth and development with the same speed or ease. For instance, there was a child in a neighborhood who was born as healthy as they come, with the standard weight and crying immediately after being taken. While children are expected to cry between the ages of 2-5 months, this particular child had a thing about crying most of the time unless she was sleeping. Her parents consulted her pediatrician who said that the baby was fine and the crying would subside.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The parents had other issues to contend with. According to American psychology, a child should be able to support its head by the age of 6-8 weeks. Also, the child should be able to sit without leaning on any surfaces by the age of 6-9 months. The neighbor’s child had problems supporting her neck on her shoulders. She would slump until the parents did something like helping the child or letting her lie down. Moreover, the girl could not even stand with the support of chairs or stools, and she had to be kept resting. Despite the doctor saying that the child was going to revert to normal, there was no sign to support such optimism.
A child should have developed the ability to sit without leaning, belly crawl and being able to assume a standing position without any help from the caregivers. In the case of the neighbor’s daughter, the girl could not sit upright without falling back, and she could not assume a standing position. Moreover, psychology suggests that between 2-12 months of growth, a child should be able to develop cognitive, language and social and emotional attachment. While children at such age cannot precisely ask for things using words, children at this age have other manners of getting what they want. Some children cab babble the words baba and mama while others can determine if someone is a friend or stranger. Children tend to be joyous in front of familiar people. Psychology says that a child can laugh due to mingling with the caregiver as the child has mustered emotional attachment and social skills.
Moreover, the child can figure out when the parent has left because it is followed by crying; however, the stops crying after realizing that the parent is just around the house somewhere. Children at the same age can tell the difference between a person they know and one they do not now. Such social skill is shown where babies cry when they are given to strangers. For instance, a mother handed her child in the church to her friend, and the baby started screaming.
The neighbor’s child could not cry eve when left alone, and oddly enough, the baby did not distinguish between being held by strangers and her caregivers. While pediatricians can describe such condition as out of the normal, the parents were not alarmed because they thought that it was nice to have a baby that does not cry. The truth is that children should cry when they are uncomfortable. For instance, when children cannot see their mothers, they get into a fit of frustration and a bout of crying until the caregivers emerge to soothe their children’s feelings. The first year of growth is also the foundation of developing fine motor skills, such as the ability of the baby to pick small things and drop things. Children use thumbs to pick small objects and even try feeding themselves using the same thumbs. At the same age, children can poke items using their index fingers. The pocking is out of a heightened sense of curiosity by the children. Typically, when they start crawling and eventually standing using support, the children develop high curiosity, and they touch everything they come across. The problem with the neighbor’s daughter is that she could not even walk using a support baby cradle. She could not even point using her index fingers. The parents could not tell what was wrong because the baby did things alone, such as pointing and tossing reachable things.
Learning a language is complex, and in the first year of development, babies have identified a way to communicate with the caregivers and other people in the same environment. Babbling and gaggling simple syllables is one of the ways of learning a language. Children at 9-12 months old exhibit increased need to imitate their caregivers. Children shake their head s to show that they are not interested or willing and sometimes use gestures that are very accurate in communicating their intentions. While some children find shaking their heads playful, most time it is a form of communication and parents should pay attention. The neighbor’s daughter spoke before she could walk without support. She blurted the words baba and mama and even attempted saying her brother’s name. The parents were relieved to realize that their child was average only that each phase is different for each child.
Every parent should try and encourage her child to grow. For instance, if the baby is attempting to walk, the parent should cheer the child and provide a better walking aid. If the child is struggling to utter the first words, the parent can repeat them playfully to tempt the child into copying what the parent is doing. Moreover, parents should realize that the first year of growth is different for every child; hence they should not compare every aspect of child growth as it could mislead them into setting unrealistic milestones for their babies. Parents; in consultation with pediatricians should set manageable milestones for children to ensure that parents can monitor the progress of their children. The first year of child development is vital as it is the foundation of the consecutive phases. Parents have the responsibility to ensure that they raise healthy kids. The neighbor’s kid walked before the other children could start calling out their parents entirely, which proves that growth is not uniformed like a production process. She even started responding to emotional and social skills by recognizing her parents and brother.
Moreover, she could even tell apart her family from strangers, depending on how often she saw someone. Psychology suggests that children learn through observation. This means that parents must parents should be the ones to teach their kids her to coordinate hand-mouth to facilitate the progression of the child from being fed to feeding themselves.
