Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. Anyone who is raising children realizes how incredibly complex they are, growing at extremely rapid rates in many different areas.
Your children’s behaviour at any given moment can be explained by; the developmental stage they are in, the developmental tasks that they are working on, their temperament, how mature they are, any outside situational factors that could be influencing your children’s growth and behaviour.
Developmental Ages and Stages
Smooth, calm behaviour often precedes unsettled, uneven behaviour cyling in and out of times when their actions can be more or less challenging.
Developmental tasks
These are ‘jobs’ of childhood that need to be accomplished in each stage in order for children to learn life skills at the appropriate times.
Temperament
All children are born with their own temperament for reacting to the world around them. Some children are very easy-going while others tend to be more challenging for parents.
Maturity
Think consists of degree of willingness a child has to do a certain task and how able he is to do that task.
Situational factors
Situational factors are any outside elements that impact children’s lives, thus affecting their actions and behaviours such as a divorce, a death of a parent, a re-location, a friend moving away or a new neighbour.
Knowledge of who your children are and the various stages of growth they go through can be valuable in helping you to know what to expect as your children enter each new phase. You can think in advance about parenting strategies and be more effective, patient and tolerant parent. It can be comforting to realise that some behaviours ‘normal’ for certain ages.
Children’s growth has many twists and turns and even some detours. Understanding each element of your unique child keeps you on track in guiding your children to reach their full potential.
Bahriye GAIR
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