Tag: Parenting

Posted in Parenting

10 Tips to Teach Your Child to Save Money

Posted on by Tim Connolly

1. Discuss Wants vs. Needs

The first step in teaching kids the value of saving is to help them distinguish between wants and needs. Explain that needs include the basics, such as food, shelter, and clothing, and wants are all the extras. You can use your own budget as an example to illustrate how wants should take a back seat to needs in terms of spending. 

2. Let Them Earn Their Own Money

Sixty-eight percent of parents said they paid their children an allowance in 2018, with kids earning $26.58 per week on average, based on six hours of chores. If you want your children to become savers, giving them their own money provides them with the opportunity to learn how to use it. When you offer allowances in exchange for chores, they’re also learning the value of their hard work.

3. Set Savings Goals

To a kid, being told to save without explaining why may seem pointless. Helping children define a savings goal can be a better way to get them motivated. If they know what it is they want to save for, help them break down their goals into manageable bites. For example, if they want to buy a $50 video game and they get a $10 allowance each week, help them figure out how long it will take to reach that goal, based on their savings rate. 

4. Provide a Place to Save

Once your children have a savings goal in mind, they’ll need a place to stash their cash. For younger kids, this may be a piggy bank, but if they’re a little older, you may want to set them up with their own savings account at a bank. That way they can see how their savings are adding up and how much progress they’re making toward their goal.

5. Learn Money Management For Children and Let Them Track Their Spending

Part of being a better saver means knowing where your money is going. If your children get an allowance, having them write down their purchases each day and add them up at the end of the week can be an eye-opening experience. Encourage them to think about how they’re spending and how much faster they could reach their savings goal if they were to change their spending patterns.

6. Offer Savings Incentives

One of the reasons people save in their employer’s retirement plan is the company matching contribution. After all, who doesn’t like free money? If you’re having trouble motivating your kids to save, you can use that same principle to ramp up their efforts. For example, if your child has set a big savings goal, say a $400 tablet, you could offer to match a percentage of what he or she saves dollar-for-dollar. Alternately, you could offer a reward when your kid reaches a savings milestone, such as a $50 bonus for hitting the halfway mark.

7. Leave Room for Mistakes

Part of putting kids in control of their own money is letting them learn from their errors. It’s tempting to step in and steer kids away from a potentially costly mistake, but it may be better to use that mistake as a teachable moment. That way they’ll know in the future what not to do with their cash.

8. Act as Their Creditor

One of the basic tenets of saving is to not live beyond your means. If your child has something he or she wants to buy and is being impatient about saving for it, becoming your kid’s creditor can help to teach the value of saving. For instance, if your child wants to purchase something that costs $100, you could “lend” the money and require payment from the allowance you provide, with interest. The lesson you want to teach is that saving may mean delaying gratification longer, but the thing you want to buy won’t end up costing more you if you wait.

9. Talk About Money

In a 2018 T. Rowe Price survey, 44% of parents said they’d never talked to their children about the value of long-term investing, discussed market volatility or showed them financial statements. If you want kids to learn about saving, it must be an ongoing discussion. Whether you schedule a regular weekly check-in to talk about money or make money chats part of your daily round, the key is to keep the conversation going. 

10. Set a Good Example

In the same T. Rowe Price survey mentioned above, 17% of parents said they had zero savings for retirement, emergencies, college or other financial goals. If you want your children to become savers, being one yourself can help. Getting your emergency fund in shape, opening a 529 savings account or simply increasing your 401(k) plan contributions are all steps you can take to encourage saving as a family activity.

Posted in Kids

Importance of Physical Activity for Children

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Physical activity can help kids cope with stress. It also promotes: 

  • Healthy growth and development 
  • Better self-esteem 
  • Stronger bones, muscles and joints 
  • Better posture and balance 
  • A stronger heart 
  • A healthier weight range 
  • Social interaction with friends 
  • Learning new skills while having fun 
  • Better focus and concentration during school

Ask if they want to be a part of a team or do an individual activity, enroll in a skill based or recreational class or do their activity with a friend or family member. 

Parents can take help from Point-system for kids to provide support and guidance about how to start and how much activity a child needs each day. They need to feel motivated and enjoy their activities. Keeping an activity log can help them chart their progress, while praise and rewards for each small step achieved can help to keep them motivated. 

Children should: 

  • Include a warm up and cool down as part of each activity session
  • Drink water before, and after activities – and have water breaks during their activities
  • Wear sunblock, a hat and sunglasses when outside in warmer weather
  • Use the right size of protective equipment
  • Start at a level that matches their current fitness level. Too much too soon can result in injury. Always play it safe

Canada ‘s Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Active Living for Children tells us that three different types of activities promote healthy growth and development: 

1. Endurance

Endurance or aerobic activities – activities that involve continuous movement of large muscle groups – increase heart rate, cause breathing to quicken, and make you work up a sweat. They are important for development of a healthy heart and lungs. 

Endurance activities can be lots of fun – and they don’t have to be competitive. Help your children choose the right activities for them. Here are a few examples: 

  • Scootering, in-line skating, skateboarding
  • Swimming, skating, dancing, tennis, martial arts  
  • Hiking, jogging, skipping, playing tag, cycling, dodgeball  
  • Hockey, football, soccer, basketball  
  • Skiing, lacrosse, wall climbing  

2. Flexibility

Activities that encourage children to bend, stretch and reach promote flexibility. Having adequate flexibility allows children to participate in daily activities without pain or restriction from their muscles or joints. 

Being flexible promotes good posture, reduces muscle stiffness and soreness, increases relaxation and minimizes risk of injury 

Flexibility Activities 

  • Active play on a playground 
  • Digging in the garden or at the beach, raking leaves
  • Gymnastics, dancing, wall climbing 
  • Yoga, skipping, stretching routines 

3. Strength

Working against a resistance helps children build stronger muscles. Adequate muscular strength allows kids to deal with the demands of daily life without excessive stress on their joints and muscles. 

Activities that build strength promote strong bones, muscles and good posture, improve the ability to lift and manoeuvre objects and obstacles and enhance healthy growth and development. 

Strength activities to promote strong bones and muscles include: 

  • Lifting and carrying things like groceries, garbage and garden waste 
  • Raking leaves, climbing stairs 
  • Gymnastics, doing sit-ups and push-ups 
  • Playground activities: monkey bars, climbing ladders, scaling poles 
  • Calisthenics using their own body weight as resistance or supervised weight training exercises using tubing, bands and hand weights. 
Posted in Parenting

Why are Bedtime Stories Important for Children?

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Bedtime Stories play a vital role in the growth and development of children. The books they read and the characters they get to know can become like friends. It’s also good for children to understand that books are a useful source of information and that good reading skills are important for success in their future lives. Reading also helps children with their confidence levels, coping with feelings and language and learning.

Confidence Levels

Children who can read well are more likely to have higher confidence levels. This will benefit them in school as they’ll feel able to participate fully in activities. Another part of building confidence and self-esteem is knowing where you fit into the world. Bedtime Stories can help with this process by showing children what people’s lives are like where they live and in other parts of the world.

Language and Learning

Bedtime Stories are a great way to introduce new words and ideas into a child’s language – starting with picture books for the very young, working up to more complex novels for teenagers. Stories can help children learn about concepts such as shape, size, space and colour, up and down, inside and outside, numbers and the names of objects. They can also teach children about everyday tasks, such as how to brush their teeth, taking care of animals, cleaning and tidying and preparing food.

Bedtime Stories are also useful for teaching more complex ideas, such as the importance of sharing, the passage of time, compassion for others. They can be useful when trying to explain traumatic events, such as family break-ups and bereavement.

Fiction based on real-life can also help children with their own life experience – it shows them how diverse the world is and that some people’s lives are vastly different to theirs.

And what’s so great about learning through Bedtime stories is that the process is done in a natural way. There’s no actual teaching involved at all, they learn from simply reading the story.

Relaxation 

Reading Bedtime stories can be helpful for relaxation, before bedtime for example. They allow children to forget the stresses and strains of the day and indulge in fantasy for a while. The soothing familiarity of a much-loved story, the rhyming and repetition in a picture book, plus the sense of security that time spent reading together can foster, all help the child to relax.

Development of Imagination

Bedtime Stories help to develop a child’s imagination by introducing new ideas into their world – ideas about fantastical worlds, other planets, different points in time and invented characters. It’ll encourage the children to realise that they can, and should, imagine anything they want. The beauty of bedtime stories to read is that they can be super realistic or incredibly fantastical. They can be reading about children growing up in exactly the same situation as them one minute and about another species, Martians holidaying on Jupiter for example, the next.

Coping With Feelings

When children read Bedtime stories that contain feelings it can help them understand and accept their own feelings. It helps them understand that there are other children who feel the same way and they are not alone. This helps the child understand that feelings are normal and should be expressed. Watching their responses to the feelings of the characters in the Bedtime stories will give you some idea of how a child feels about certain situations and emotions. For example, how the child responds to the character in the story feeling sad or scared will give you some idea of how the child thinks.

As you can see, children’s Bedtime stories are important for a number of reasons and form a vital part of the growing process. Being part of that process can bring writers a sense of satisfaction as well as being great fun.

Posted in Kids

9 Reasons for Personal Hygiene For Children

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Proper personal hygiene means taking care of every aspect of your body, from keeping it clean to looking your best. Basic hygiene should be taught to children at an early age to help establish good habits. Parents can reinforce good hygienic behavior by creating routines and being good role models. Personal hygiene practices include bathing, washing your hands, keeping your hair clean and brushing your teeth. Your personal, social and professional worlds are all affected by hygiene habits.

Disease Prevention

Wash your hands often to prevent the spread of disease. Each time you use the restroom, wash your hands before leaving the area to remove germs. Wash your hands before you handle food, eat or take out contact lenses.

Nice Smile

Most people want to keep their teeth and have attractive smiles. This requires frequent brushing and good dental habits. If you fail to brush your teeth, they are more likely to become discolored, get cavities and possibly fall out. According to the American Academy of Periodontology, regular brushing and flossing can significantly decrease the risk of gum disease, which can cause bad breath or even worse—tooth loss.

Lower Health Care Costs

Since it curbs the spread of disease, good hygiene results in lower health care costs. Brushing your teeth and keeping clean could eliminate unnecessary visits to your dentist and doctor, saving you money.

Dandruff Prevention

Good hygiene includes washing your hair and brushing it regularly to prevent dandruff and other scalp diseases. It’s embarrassing when you glance down at your dark shirt and see white skin flakes that everyone else has probably already noticed.

Self-Esteem

When you’re clean, you’ll feel much better about yourself than when you’re dirty. People will react more positively to you, which will also help raise your self-esteem.

Social Acceptance

Good hygiene is critical for social acceptance, because most people don’t want to be around others who are dirty or smelly. Children who practice good hygiene eliminate one major reason for other kids to make fun of or bully them. It’s sad to see someone on the playground getting taunted for smelling bad or having dirty hair.

Professional Acceptance

Most employers prefer employees who are clean and well-groomed. Good hygiene can make the difference in being hired and getting promotions.

Being a Role Model

Parents should set an example for their children by practicing good hygiene. Children are more likely to do what you do than what you say.

Pain Prevention

Periodontal disease can cause chronic mouth pain in advanced stages, the American Academy of Periodontology reports. The main cause of gum disease is plaque buildup, which can be reduced with proper oral hygiene.

You can get useful information from popular children book series about how to develop good habits regarding personal hygiene among kids.


Posted in Parenting

WHAT ARE THE BEST MORAL VALUES FOR FAMILIES?

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Teaching your kids moral values is one of the most important responsibilities you have as a parent. In order for your children to act morally, they need to know the good, care about the good and practice doing the good. 

The way your kids choose to treat others is critical. There are too many news stories of children committing suicide due in part to the cruel behavior of other kids. There are too many kids posting mean comments on social media. Too many kids avoiding activities due to bullying. How do you guide your kids in treating others? 

Knowing the Good

What does it mean to be a good person? What traits does your family most value? Renée Trudeau, author of Nurturing the Soul of Your Family, shared that when her son was entering middle school they created a “Family Purpose Statement”. She described they “highlighted the top five qualities that were most important to us. At the top of our list: compassion – for self and for others.” 

What virtues make your family’s top five list? Some to consider include: 

  • Acceptance: having an objective attitude toward other’s ideas and practices that differ from your own
  • Compassion: understanding the suffering of others or self and wanting to do something about it
  • Cooperation: helping your family and friends, returning favors
  • Courage: willingness to do difficult things
  • Equality: believing everyone deserves equal rights and to be treated with respect
  • Fairness: acting in a just way, sharing appropriately
  • Generosity: willingness to give resources, help or time to others
  • Gratitude: showing appreciation to others
  • Honesty: being truthful and sincere
  • Integrity: sticking to your moral and ethical principles and values
  • Kindness: being considerate and treating others well
  • Perseverance: persisting in a course of action, belief or purpose
  • Politeness: using good manners, acting in socially acceptable ways
  • Respect: showing consideration for the worth of someone or something
  • Responsibility: being reliable in your obligations
  • Self-control: staying in control of your words and behavior
  • Trustworthy: reliably doing what is right even when it is difficult, being true to your word

One way to help your children internalize these characteristics is to notice them. When you see your child being responsible, honest or showing compassion, comment on it. For example, if your child attempts to comfort a child who is hurt, you can say “That’s kind of you to help him.” 

Caring About the Good 

There is a big difference between knowing about moral values and actually trying to adopt the traits. Often standing up for your morals takes courage and strength. 

After your family has selected your top five values, find examples of how you’ve demonstrated those in the past. Your kids may want to create a poster for each value with pictures and examples of that value. Leave space to add more examples. 

Next encourage each person commit to one value they want to focus on for the week. Check in daily with each other to see if there was an opportunity to act on that value. What happened? How did it feel? What did you learn? 

Asking your kids these questions sends the message that you care about these values. Like adults, your kids will make mistakes and act in ways that don’t represent their highest values. When this happens, help them find a way to make amends. Ask questions to guide your kids in figuring out what they would like to do to make things better. 

Doing the Good

Your kids will have daily opportunities to choose to act on their values. Behaving ethically requires a strong moral conviction. 

It’s a proud moment when your children choose to show compassion and take responsibility for speaking up. During a middle school basketball game in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the kids demonstrated their moral convictions. CBS reported “The student athletes stood up for one of the team’s cheerleaders when they heard some derogatory words directed toward her during a basketball game at Lincoln Middle School. Chase Vazquez, Scooter Terrien and Miles Rodriguez walked off the court in the middle of the game to address the mean-spirited comments directed at cheerleader Desiree Andrews, who has Down syndrome.

You can easily find out the ways to teach moral values by learning about economics for kids and can develop your child with good values in their childhood only.

Posted in Parenting

Personal hygiene for kids

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Good personal hygiene will help your kids stay healthy, ward off illnesses, and build better self-awareness.

It’s never too early to start teaching hygiene. You can wipe down your child’s hands after changing their diapers or before eating, brush their teeth and gums before bed, and get them into a daily bath routine. This helps you begin the process and slowly teaches them as they grow and take over the process.

Here’s a list of hygiene activities, how you can introduce them, and when is a good time to start:

Brushing teeth

You can begin brushing your baby’s teeth and gums the moment the first tooth pops up. They can brush their own teeth by about 3 years old. However, you may have to stay with them to guarantee they’re doing a good job and brushing long enough.

Play a 2-minute song when it’s time to brush teeth. That will let your little one know how long they have to brush, and they’ll get used to the process. Likewise, you may have to continue flossing for them until they’re older and can handle that task better, around age 7.

Bathing

You’ll be giving your baby baths regularly, but by about age 5, they should be able to handle this task on their own. As they’re growing and you’re supervising bath time, you should take the opportunity to teach about washing all the different body parts, especially:

  • armpits
  • groins
  • neck
  • belly
  • knees
  • elbows
  • back
  • feet

You can also use this time to teach them how to wash their hair without getting suds in their eyes — and what to do if they do.

Hand washing

Wipe your baby’s hands with a warm washcloth before mealtime, after eating, and after changing a diaper. During potty training, make washing hands an integral step in the process.

You can teach your child to sing the ABC song while they wash — it’s 20 seconds long, which is an ideal washing time.

Make it a priority to ask your child to wash their hands any time you’d like to encourage good hygiene, like before meals, after playing outside, after petting an animal, or after being near a sick friend.

Nail hygiene

You’ll clip your child’s nails when they’re a baby, but as they grow older, you can help them care for their own nails. Encourage your children to wash under their nails at each shower — a fun nail brush will help. Then, sit down with them weekly after a shower for a trim. Your nails are softer and clip more easily after a shower. By age 7, most children should be up for the task alone.

You can easily find out the ways from Point-system for kids to develop hygienic habits among your children, so that you can prevent them from illness at a greater level.

Posted in Kids

Why Teaching Values Isn’t Enough

Posted on by Tim Connolly

These days we hear a lot of talk about teaching kids values. According to a major survey by the organization Public Agenda, more than six in ten American adults identified “as a very serious problem” young people’s failure to learn fundamental moral values, including honesty, respect, and responsibility for others. A huge character education industry has cropped up in the last few decades, and much of it is devoted to touting values in schools and other settings.

It is, of course, important for children to learn values. But one big problem with this approach became clear to me several years ago talking to a few 7 year old girls who are friends of my daughter. I asked them how they would respond to a question in a popular character education program. “Should you be honest with your teacher if you forget to do your homework?”  One girl said: “Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear or should I tell you the truth?” Another friend chimed in: “No kid is honest about that–who wants your teacher to get mad at you?”

I’m obviously for values, but research shows that my daughter’s friends are not exceptions. By the time children are 4 years old, they often know certain values–that stealing is wrong, for example. Because kids tend to know values, they often feel patronized by lectures about values or just learn to parrot back what adults want to hear.

That’s not to say–and this can’t be shouted loud enough–that these children do not have a problem with values. But for many children the problem is actually living by values such as fairness, caring, and responsibility day to day. Sixteen-year-old Bill Heron knows that he laughed too hard when a friend put a fart machine under the desk of a new girl in class, but he didn’t want to “spoil the joke” for everyone. Ten-year-old Jim Wright knows that teasing can be hurtful, but he believes that if he stops teasing he’ll be tagged a loser: “I’ll slide right into the sea of dorks.” As a quite direct sixteen-year-old said to me: “I’m taking this class where they’re trying to help us figure out how to determine what’s right from wrong. But kids at my school know right from wrong. That’s not the problem. The problem is that some kids just don’t give a shit.” These children don’t need us to define the goal. That’s easy. The challenges for us are much harder and deeper. To develop children’s morality, we need to focus, minimally, on five basic capacities.

1. Moral Identity

We need to help children not only know values but develop a deep commitment to values. Values such as fairness, kindness and responsibility for others should be an integral part of a child’s self or identity. The self-sacrificing acts of Europeans who rescued Jews from the Nazis in World War II, research by Samuel and Pearl Oliner reveals, were not matters of deliberation. They were acts that emerged from these individuals’ basic self-concepts and dispositions. By requiring children to help around the house, by insisting that children be respectful to us, to their friends, to our friends and to strangers, by talking to children about why values are important–among many strategies–we can weave values such as responsibility for others into children’s sense of self from an early age.


2. Managing Destructive Emotions

Often it is emotions, such as the fear of being a pariah or a “loser,” that cause us to transgress. Developing children’s morality is about preventing children from suffering high levels of shame, envy, entitlement and other destructive emotions and helping children manage these feelings.article continues after advertisement

3. Moral Reasoning

Another problem with simply teaching values is that children often face moral dilemmas, situations where values collide. For example, if a friend steals a calculator, should a child be honest with the teacher who asks her who stole the calculator, or loyal to her friend? Children need help developing moral reasoning, the capacity to sort through these moral dilemmas and problems. That means, in part, helping children take multiple perspectives and think about the precedents they are setting by their actions for their communities.


4. Key Social and Emotional Competencies
Morality is also about having the skills needed to treat people well everyday–knowing how to help others without patronizing them, say, or how to give feedback constructively. Adults can guide children in developing these social and emotional skills.


5. The Strength and Maturity of the Self
To stand up for important principles or to take responsibility for others may mean painful ostracism or other hardships. Cultivating children’s morality thus also means nurturing the strength and maturity of the self (see post on April 15, 2009)

To be sure, developing these 5 moral capacities, in addition to moral literacy, is not a simple task. But unlike simply teaching values, it stands a real chance of helping many children become strong, caring and fair adults.

Posted in Parenting

Socialism facts for kids

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Socialism is an economic system where the ways of making money (factories, offices, etc.) are owned by a society as a whole, meaning the value made belongs to everyone in that society, instead of a small group of private owners. People who agree with this type of system are called socialists. There are two ways socialists think that society can own the means of making wealth: either the state (government of the country) is used or worker-owned cooperatives are used. Another important belief is that management and sharing are supposed to be based on public interests. Socialists believe that everything in society is made by the cooperative efforts of the people.

There are many kinds of socialism, so no one definition can apply to all of them; however, in all types, the workers own the means of production. The major differences between the different varieties are the role of the free market or planning, how the means of production are controlled, the role of management of workers and the government’s role in the economy.

Some socialists believe that socialism will over time turn into what they see as a more advanced system with no state, money, or social classes. Because the tools for making and distributing things are owned by everyone in socialism, more jobs will be replaced by machines until the amount of human work needed is made as low as possible, so they say that this will let everyone get what they want without using money. This is called Communism and these socialists are called communists.

Socialism is an economic theory of social organization that believes that the means of making, moving, and trading wealth should be owned or controlled by the community as a whole. In Marxist theory, it is a transitional (temporary, in between) social state between capitalism and communism.

Social democracy is a kind of socialism that tries to mix parts of socialism with capitalism. In this system, the government takes wealth (money) from the rich and gives it to the poor like in a Communist state, but despite there being more government control and less chance to make a very large amount of money, people can still run their own businesses and own private property. Unlike communism, where all private property is taken to be owned publicly, people and businesses pay taxes on their property, and this money is spent on public services (see below), after taking out the costs of running the government and collecting the taxes. The main method of democratic socialism is changing society through slow reform rather than a quick revolution.

In many countries that use social democracy, some services and industries are subsidized (given money to help them run) and/or partly controlled by the government. For example, education, health care, housing, utility companies and public transportation are some industries that might be owned/supported by the government in a socialist system. For the most part, people working in these industries are paid by the government, with money paid by the people as taxes. Welfare is also likely offered under socialism.

Another kind of Socialism is “Collectivization.” In this system, money and goods are shared more equally among the people, with the government in control. In theory, this system results in the gap between classes getting smaller, with the poorest of a nation’s people being helped by the state while the richest agree to higher taxes and economic controls/restrictions. Of course, Socialism as it is commonly used is different in many ways from communism (See “The History of Socialism and Communism”, later in the article.)

Today, many democratic socialists, especially in Western Europe, want industries to be guided jointly (together) by representatives of shareholders (people who own part of the business) as well as the workers working together in what is known as an industrial democracy because both groups want the business to do well. This would be a more direct democraticway of organizing rather than control by central government. Trade unions and/or workers councils would represent the interests of the employees.

Many countries see Socialism differently. Socialist International is an organization dedicated to the cause of promoting socialist ideals, and has ties with many Socialist parties, especially Social Democratic parties.

Most non-communist people say “communism” when they mean the Marxist and Leninist ideas of Russia’s Bolshevik party. Marx believed that capitalism followed the economic and political system of feudalism. He also believed that capitalism would oppress (treat unfairly) many people, and those people would eventually revolt and change to socialism. Then he thought that socialism can be another bridge, but to communism. However, many people incorrectly use the term “Communist” to refer to a socialist state. Others call this ‘State Socialism,’ to distinguish it from the communist goal that does not need a state or any form of government. To non-communists, the word ‘socialism’ is now mostly used for attempts to come close to this goal in a democratic state.

So, these above given facts about socialism are very helpful to develop habits of socialism in kids and would lead to create a social and well behaved child in future…

Posted in Parenting

What is child development and what skills do children develop at different ages

Posted on by Tim Connolly

What is child development?


Child development is a process every child goes through. This process involves learning and mastering skills like sitting, walking, talking, skipping, and tying shoes. Children learn these skills, called developmental milestones, during predictable time periods. 

Children develop skills in five main areas of development:

  1. Cognitive Development
    This is the child’s ability to learn and solve problems. For example, this includes a two-month-old baby learning to explore the environment with hands or eyes or a five-year-old learning how to do simple math problems.
  2. Social and Emotional Development
    This is the child’s ability to interact with others, including helping themselves and self-control. Examples of this type of development would include: a six-week-old baby smiling, a ten-month-old baby waving bye-bye, or a five-year-old boy knowing how to take turns in games at school.
  3. Speech and Language Development
    This is the child’s ability to both understand and use language. For example, this includes a 12-month-old baby saying his first words, a two-year-old naming parts of her body, or a five-year-old learning to say “feet” instead of “foots”.
  4. Fine Motor Skill Development
    This is the child’s ability to use small muscles, specifically their hands and fingers, to pick up small objects, hold a spoon, turn pages in a book, or use a crayon to draw.
  5. Gross Motor Skill Development
    This is the child’s ability to use large muscles. For example, a six-month-old baby learns how to sit up with some support, a 12-month-old baby learns to pull up to a stand holding onto furniture, and a five-year-old learns to skip.

The National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities has recently launched a campaign to promote child development.

What is a developmental milestone?
A developmental milestone is a skill that a child acquires within a specific time frame. For instance, one developmental milestone is learning to walk. Most children learn this skill or developmental milestone between the ages of 9 and 15 months. 

Milestones develop in a sequential fashion. This means that a child will need to develop some skills before he or she can develop new skills. For example, children must first learn to crawl and to pull up to a standing position before they are able to walk. Each milestone that a child acquires builds on the last milestone developed. 

What are typical milestones, or skills, children learn at different ages?
We now know that our brains are not fully developed at birth. In fact, a baby’s brain weighs about one quarter (1/4) of what an adult’s brain weighs!

The brain grows very rapidly during the first several years of life. During this time, your child is learning all sorts of new skills. 

Because children usually acquire developmental milestones or skills during a specific time frame or “window”, we can predict when most children will learn different skills. The pages below describe the types of skills children usually learn at different ages.

Childhood Development:

  • First 6 Weeks
  • 1½ to 3 Months
  • 3 to 6 Months
  • 6 to 9 Months
  • 9 to 12 Months
  • 1 to 2 Years
  • 2 to 3 Years
  • 3 to 5 Years
  • 5 to 7 Years

What if my child does not meet a developmental milestone?
Each child is an individual and may meet developmental milestones a little earlier or later than his peers. You may have heard people say things like, “he was walking before he turned 10 months, much earlier than his older brother” or “she didn’t say much until she was about 2 years old and then she talked a blue streak!” This is because each child is unique and will develop at his or her own pace. 

However, there are definitely blocks of time when most children will meet a milestone. For example, children learn to walk anytime between 9 and 15 months of age. So, if your child is 13 months of age and not yet walking, there is no need to worry if he is crawling and pulling to a stand. He has acquired the skills he needs to learn to walk and may begin walking soon. However, if you have a child 15 months of age who is not yet walking, it would be a good idea to talk with your child’s pediatrician to make sure there aren’t any medical or developmental problems since age 15 months is outside of the normal “window” or time frame in which children learn to walk. 

In this website, we will provide you with some information about these “windows” or blocks of time when children usually develop a skill. We also will share with you some warning signs or “red flags” to watch for that may mean your child is not meeting developmental milestones. We will also give you the names of some books and websites about child development that you may find helpful.

However, whenever you have questions, do not hesitate to ask a professional like your child’s doctor, nurse practitioner, or a trained child development or behavioral specialist. There are also several clinical specialists who are specifically trained in various areas of development who can be consulted. These include speech pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, developmental psychologists and audiologists. 

How can I help my child meet these developmental milestones?


As parents, we all want our children to succeed and be the best they can be. We know from research that two factors influence how your child succeeds and grows: genes and environment. 

One of the factors that influence our child’s development is their genetic makeup or “genes.” Some people refer to this as “nature.” Genes are the genetic material we pass onto our children. Children are born with their “genes” in place. These genes act like a blueprint for what characteristics a child may have. For example, genes determine if a child will have blue eyes or brown eyes; they also determine if he will be left- or right-handed. 

The other factor that influences child development is the environment. This includes experiences children have in their home, school and community environments. Some people refer to this as “nurture.” The environment can either improve or harm a child’s genetic blueprint. For example, malnourished children who live in third world countries may not reach their IQ potential because of the impact of their environment on their brain development. 

Posted in Parenting

7 Do’s and Don’ts of Raising a Happy Child

Posted on by Tim Connolly

Happiness probably tops the list of things you want to cultivate in your children — just follow our list of what to do (and not do) when nurturing your child’s positive outlook.

Do Let Your Kid Take the Lead

Spend “child-centered time” with your kid every day, says Joyce Nolan Harrison, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. This means putting away all distractions (read: your smartphone!), getting on the floor, giving your full “face-to-face” attention, and letting your little one lead playtime. “Do what the child wants to do, not what you want the child to do,” she says. This isn’t a new concept, but it can be extremely difficult for many parents. Start by dedicating just five minutes to playtime each day. “Inevitably, what happens,” she says, “is parents want to do it more.” If you have multiple kids, spend time individually with each one; combine their playtime only if they request it.

Don’t Protect Kids From Failure

It may be one of the hardest tasks as a parent, but let your kid make her own mistakes — and learn from them. To help kids prepare for sticky situations, help them learn to accept life’s realities, such as conflict, struggle, and consequences. For instance, if your daughter repeatedly forgets to take her lunch to school, let her manage for herself in the cafeteria one day. If she isn’t getting along with a teacher or a classmate, let her try working it out first. “Children have to deal with the fact that this world is full of flawed people,” says Christine Carter, Ph.D., author of Raising Happiness and a sociologist at UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. Avoid becoming a “helicopter” parent, who is always hovering, or a “snow-plough” parent, who swoops in and rescues a child before something bad happens. Instead, adopt a middle-ground approach to parenting. “The trick is to stay just far enough away that the child begins to develop her own autonomy, but close enough that if a child is floundering, the parents can come in and pick her up,” says Dorothy Stubbe, M.D., associate professor and program director at Yale University School of Medicine Child Study Center.

Do Offer (Selective) Praise

Pop quiz: Your kid scores a 95 on a math test. You respond with: (A) You’re so smart! I’m super proud of you, or (B) I’m glad that you studied hard. Keep up the great work! For the sake of your child’s self-esteem and happiness, experts agree that option B is the best response, since it’s better to dole out praise for an action than for a result. Praising inherent traits, such as intelligence, can make kids self-conscious, which may lead to unwanted complexes. The worst-case scenario is when a child evolves into a perfectionist and eventually feels insecure and believes he is disappointing you if he doesn’t get straight A’s. These days, parents tend to overpraise, so buck the trend by praising for concrete actions and effort. Dr. Carter notes that it’s easier to comment on the end result, such as a high test score, but she recommends that you train yourself to praise “specific effort, because that’s in a child’s control.”

Don’t Criticize and Compare

Shining the light on unwelcomed behavior can often backfire. “Give a reaction when you want an action repeated,” Dr. Harrison says. “Ignore things you don’t want to continue. For some kids, a bad reaction is better than no reaction.” In other words, say something nice when your daughter puts away her toys, but try to hold your breath when she doesn’t share them with her little brother. Avoiding criticism boosts a child’s self-esteem and helps keep her happy and motivated, Dr. Stubbe says. If your child repeats the bad behavior, try hard to continue ignoring it. If it persists, remain patient, and calmly explain to him why his behavior is not acceptable, and remind him of how he should act.

Do Show Gratitude

“Gratitude and happiness are so strongly linked,” Dr. Carter says. So practice gratitude with your munchkin on a daily basis, but appreciation lists shouldn’t consist solely of toys and tablets. Teach your children to focus on being thankful for nonmaterial things, such as sleeping in a warm bed or taking an art class, to broaden their perspective. If your child can’t rattle off a list, it doesn’t mean he’s not grateful — he may simply need practice. “Kids aren’t really taught to be grateful, but parents get upset when kids act entitled,” Dr. Carter says. If your youngster isn’t responsive, try a sneaky approach: At dinnertime or before bed, ask him to name three good things that happened that day.