What are Child Development Stages ?  Simply put, they are the development milestones attained by a child during their development.  Each stage covers a number of different aspects of the child’s development, including

• Physical
• Motor
• Psychological
• Cognitive
• Social
• Language

Children progress through the child development stages through their experience of the world around them.  They move, touch, smell, see, hear and taste their world and so early development is very much sensory led.  During the early development, often the child’s actions are driven by needs and communication of those needs to us, for example a baby’s cry to get attention.  As the child develops, this may be expressed vocally or gestures.  Every child is unique in his or her own way that they develop, yet they may share similarities with other children.  So as a parent we must be adaptive in our approach to child development, after all what worked for one child may not work for another of their siblings.

The following will give some guidance as to the types of topics that can be used during the early child development stages.  As each stage progresses, it s important to keep re-enforcing lessons taught at an earlier stage.

• At 2-weeks, and yes child development does begin at this age.  Hold, cuddle, talk to, sing to and rock your baby as much as you can. A lot of your infant’s development depends on their interaction with you. Every touch provides the necessary stimulation.

• At 2-months you should encourage your baby to “speak” by talking to him or her during dressing, bathing, feeding, playing, walking and driving. You should also begin to use age-appropriate toys in your child development play

• At 4-months it is the time to think about getting your baby a playpen and some suitable toys to keep him or her entertained

• At 6-months start to set some limits for future discipline by using distraction, reducing stimulation and establishing routines.

• At 9-months your child will have probably started to crawl to provide opportunities for safe exploration. You must continue to re-enforce setting limits by using verbal “No’s,” distraction or if applicable removing the object from the child’s view.
  

• At 12-months you should be actively encouraging your child to play, alone with supervision or with other toddlers.

• At 15-months it is time for positive reinforcement of what is and isn’t acceptable behavior. Praise the child for good behavior and build up the child’s self-esteem and self-confidence.

• At 18-months you should encourage your toddler to make choices whenever possible.  The key here is to limit the choices to those you find acceptable.  Don’t ask an open question, for example “Do you want….” unless you are prepared to accept the child’s reply

• At 2-years you should use picture books to enrich your child’s vocabulary which will help with language development.

Obviously child development doesn’t stop at the age of two, but as this is such a extensive topic, we have only scratched the surface of the first two years.

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