Becoming a parent is like transitioning into a career with essentially no training. One day, you are living your life almost as usual, and the next day, every moment of your life is devoted to this tiny, new being. To many parents, the transition feels natural and occurs with relative ease. To many others, the prospect of radically altering their lifestyle to ensure the health, happiness and success of a baby is absolutely paralyzing.
If you fall into the latter category, you might benefit from investing in your parenting education before your new baby arrives. In particular, understanding more about child development might provide you with tools and techniques for helping your little one grow into a happy, healthy kid and a secure and stable adult. Three of the most important lessons about child development, as determined by child development experts, read on to learn more.
- Development Is Not a Race
Many parents are tempted to brag to their friends about how easily their little one started rolling over by themselves, how soon they started walking and how quickly they mastered their A-B-Cs. When others talk to you about their child’s rapid pace of development, you will likely compare what you hear to what you know about your child but you shouldn’t.
As tempting as it might be to assume that speedy development is a sign of superiority cognitive, physical or otherwise the truth is that development rate, especially in the first months and years of life, has little to do with a child’s inherent skills or talents. Your child may learn to walk sooner than his peers, but that does not mean he will become an Olympic runner; likewise, a friend’s little one may be talking in full sentences years before your kid, but they are similarly not likely to benefit lifelong from their early linguistic development.
As a first-time parent, you might try to rush your child to developmental milestones, but doing so might cause more harm than good. In truth, development is not a race, and a wide variety of developmental outcomes lead to success in childhood and adulthood. Unless and until your pediatrician indicates that your child has a developmental delay, you should put no pressure on the rate of your little one’s development.
- Moderation Is Key
In childhood development, negative experiences are almost as important as positive experiences. Through negative experiences, children learn how to regulate their emotions and behaviors, which makes them more confident and effective in the real world. However, too many negative experiences can have negative consequences, like stress and anxiety disorders or poor coping mechanisms that last into adulthood. Thus, as a parent, you need to know when to allow your child to experience a challenge and when to step in and provide necessary support.
A good example is a playground conflict between two kids. Working through conflict is a skill that children need to develop early and practice often, as they will continue to experience conflict into their adult lives. The sooner kids learn how to overcome conflict themselves, the better. You might consider allowing conflicting kids to find their own solutions unless the conflict becomes physically dangerous to anyone or anything.
Another example that will be more relevant to you pertains to soothing a crying infant. Most development experts advocate for waiting a few minutes before soothing a crying baby in the hopes that the little one will become adept at soothing themselves. As your baby gets older, you might extend the waiting period longer and longer.
Of course, for every negative experience a child faces, they should have several positive experiences bolstering their development. You should be liberal in showing your baby affection, and they should never have reason to doubt your love for them. Then, when they encounter a challenge, they will be able to learn and grow with full awareness of your support.
- Self-regulation Is Essential
If you take a child development course, you will learn that the most important skill for children to develop in early childhood is not walking or talking, eating with a fork or using the potty it is self-regulation. Contrary to what our culture might expect of its littlest members, self-regulation is not an inherent skill in human beings; babies are not born with the ability to manage their emotions and behaviors. In fact, the part of the brain responsible for managing impulses might not become fully mature until it is about 25 years old. As a result, tantrums and high-energy behaviors are commonplace in little humans, who have yet to learn how to regulate themselves.
Your primary job as a parent during the earliest periods of your child’s life is to model behaviors that reflect your own ability to self-regulate. Instead of raising your voice, cursing, hitting or breaking things when you are angry, you should try to control that energy through breathing or a positive activity, like exercise. When you are sad, you might talk to your kid about what that means and how you prefer to manage that emotion. With time and practice, your baby will become a self-regulation expert, which will help them thrive in any environment as they get older.
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