As a parent, you are always going to be concerned about your kids, and you’ll always want to make sure that they are developing as well as possible in all the ways that might be important and necessary. As it happens, there are a lot of things that you can do to help that along, but you’ll also want to be as aware as possible of some of the signs that it is working so that you will know if you are moving in the right direction with them or not. Then, you can change course if need be.
In this post, we are going to take a look at some of the clear signs that your child is developing well. If you start to notice the following, you’ll find that you are probably doing something right and that you can expect your child to have a really strong start in life generally too. Let’s take a look and see what these signs really are.
Responding To You
Early on, one of the main signs that you will want to find from your child is that they are responding to you when you talk to them. In particular, you’ll expect them to respond to their name and to be able to look you in the eyes and so on too. In general, you’ll just get a sense that they know they are being spoken to and that they are aware of that interaction. This is an early but really important kind of development that you would want to look out for.
There can be all sorts of reasons behind it if this isn’t happening. It could be something like autism, or they could just be a little behind the normal developmental stage. In any case, if this isn’t happening after about 12 months or so you should probably see whether they need any help at all.
Pointing & Other Hand Movements
Shortly after that, you can expect them to start using basic hand movements, prime amongst them being pointing. If they are able to point to objects then this is going to mean that they are much more likely to be developing normally. Children will normally start doing this after a year or so, so you should watch out for this. They should start to develop an interest in their hands as well, which is something else that you would want to look out for.
Again, if this is not happening, it’s not necessarily a huge concern, but it is definitely something to be aware of and think about. You need to make sure that they are going to be developing properly, and as part of this, you need to make sure that you are paying attention to this kind of thing.
Playing
Playing, and pretend playing, are not only fun and enjoyable things that your kid does with you, but also a sign of normal development. All children play, and it’s something that you are certainly going to find yourself looking out for if you are going to try and ensure your children are developing as well as possible. Good ability to play shows that your child can think and conceive in ways that prove really important later on.
If you engage them in play and they don’t respond as you would expect, and this happens again and again, this is something that you are going to want to be aware of. It could be that they need some extra help, or even that something more serious is going on. In any case, it’s going to be important to pay attention to it.
Literacy Skills
When your children are older and they are starting education, one of the main kinds of skills you’ll want them to develop is literacy skills. This is vital for their ongoing learning and for operating in the world as an adult, so it’s naturally something that you want to try and encourage as best as you can. There are a couple of main things that you might look out for here in particular if you want to make sure that they are developing as well as possible in this way.
For instance, how is their reading development, and are they reading at the pace you would expect from their age? This is a really important part of this. Later on, there will also be writing skills – at first, just their name, and later on more and more complex writing. Again, this is really important, so make sure that you are aware of this and pay close attention to how it’s going.
If their literacy skills are developing appropriately, that is a hugely important thing to be aware of and you’re going to find that your child is developing well generally.
Numeracy Skills
At the same time, you’ll also want to make sure that they are developing the necessary numeracy skills, and many of these can be quite important to get right too. Again, there are different levels of complexity that you will expect depending on their age, but generally, you’ll want to see things progressing steadily here so that their ability with numbers improves over time. As long as that is the case, it’s going to make for a much better ability to develop in general, and that is going to be something really important that you are keen on here.
If their numeracy is not going as expected, you can work with them to try and develop it quickly. This is the kind of thing that can respond well to your instruction, so it’s worth a god if you are concerned.
Those are some of the main signs that your child is developing normally. If any of these are off or need improvements, then you know what to work on, and you can hope to change things quite a lot this way for your child’s future.
Disclosure: collaborative post
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