Learning proper skills of development can help a child in so many ways. Taking an active role and teaching your child the proper developmental skills will assist them throughout their lives. Here are some examples.
Teaching your children is one of the most important tasks you can do as a parent. Helping a child develop skills that will assist them in their overall physical, psychological and emotional development is key to success in school and in their lives. Children are at different stages of development depending on their age. Toddlers and pre-schoolers should be learning developmental skills that include social development, physical development, cognitive development and language development.
Some examples of skills that should be taught in these different categories are:
Social development: The child should have a sense of self. This means they can adjust to different situations, they trust adults, they can recognize their own feels and know how to deal with them appropriately and they can stand up for themselves when needed. Teaching these skills to your child can be a simple as allowing them to make some of their own choices, such as what clothes they would like to wear or what they want to eat for lunch.
Physical development: Can demonstrate basis motor skills such as running, jumping and hopping. Shows a sense of balance. Can kick and catch a ball without trouble. Some fine motor skills are controlling small muscles in hands, coordinate hand and eye movement and uses tools like pencils and crayons for drawing. In order to teach these skills to your child you can schedule playtime with them. Talk them outside or to the park and run, play ball, swing and jump rope. It is important they develop good coordination early.
Cognitive development: Consists of learning and problem solving. Observes objects with curiosity, approaches tasks with persistence and explores cause and effect. Logical thinking skills include classifies objects, recognizes patterns, shows awareness of time and consequence sequences and uses one-on-one correspondence. Symbolic thinking and representation is when the child takes on pretend roles and makes believe with objects. Helping your child develop cognitive skills takes a little more persistence. Sing songs and play pretend games (role play). Teach them math skills by counting objects and money. Do fun activities like creating a craft where they have to glue patterns and objects. You can also cook something together and let them measure the ingredients. If you do things together and talk about your actions you can correspond with one another and learn thing together.
Language Development: Listening and speaking are extremely important, especially in early development. Your child should be able to hear and discriminate between sounds, express themselves in words, understand and follow direction, ask and answer questions, actively participate in conversations. Helping your child develop good language skills can be as easy as communication with them often. You can play games with them that help them learn letters and sounds. Ask them lots of questions and let them ask you questions about different things. Take the time to offer a good explanation to their questions.
Assisting your child in learning skills that will help them in their physical, psychological and emotional development can be enjoyable for both your and your pre-schooler. If children are able to obtain the proper skills at a young age it will help them tremendously in school, not only with learning reading, writing, language and math, but also with the social aspects. Teach your child these skills at home and they will be able learn more advanced skills at school. Playing an active part in your child's development is rewarding for you and your kids.
