How To Know If Your Child Is Reaching Developmental Milestones
How To Know If Your Child Is Reaching Developmental Milestones
Being a parent can be an exciting chapter in life. You want to bond with your child on a personal level and have fun raising them. On the other hand, you want to ensure that you create boundaries with their routine, nutrition, and learning so that they reach their developmental milestones.
Having a child can feel like starting all over again, too. You’ll experience a mixture of emotions at each doctor’s appointment as you learn their height and weight percentiles and whether or not they are meeting milestones like fine motor skills, crawling, walking, and speaking according to the recommended schedule.
Trying to figure out what’s normal versus atypical regarding your child’s development can feel like a lot. Here’s how to know if your child is reaching developmental milestones.
Take Time to Educate Yourself
It takes time to feel comfortable parenting. With each new child comes a new parent who has to learn, grow, and adapt. And since every child is unique, every experience as a parent will play out differently. While there are recommended guidelines, developmental milestones, and timelines, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
One of the best things you can do as a parent, especially as a new or first-time parent, is to take the time to do your research. Read books, articles, and web pages. Listen to podcasts. Attend classes. Make sure that you’re checking sources to ensure that you’re not reading any false or misinformation. These verified educational opportunities can help you learn about what’s expected so that you can compare and use them as a guide for your own experiences.
Know the Warning Signs
Taking the time to educate yourself can come in handy, especially when looking for signs, callouts, or differences in how your child may be falling behind or not reaching developmental milestones. For your own point of reference, here are some of the warning signs to look out for:
- Communication struggles
- Difficulty problem solving
- Little to no fine motor skills
- Social issues
- Inability to pay attention (outside what is to be expected for their age range)
See How They Interact With Other Children Their Age
While it isn’t wise to get in a baby race with playtime peers or compare your children to their friends, it is worth noticing if your child begins to fall behind significantly. Each child develops at their own rate, and rapid growth in one area can come at the cost of growth in another, but not altogether. Pay attention to see if your child’s skills and behaviors are similar to those of children around them of the same age. There will always be some deviation, but they should rank close to their peers.
This is why regular check-up appointments with your pediatrician are invaluable. If you start having concerns, tell your child’s doctor. They will let you know if your fears have merit or if you can put your anxiety away.
How to Move Forward
It’s easy to worry about your child when you’re a parent. All you want for them is to be healthy and happy. You want to be able to provide for them so that they grow up to be successful. If you’re a parent who’s worried about their child not meeting their developmental milestones when they’re supposed to, you are not alone. Many parents worry.
No matter what, help is available to you and your child. Attending therapy can be a great way for you to work through parental anxiety and fears. Therapy can also help your child work through roadblocks that may be preventing them from reaching those milestones laid out for them. Reach out to Fox Child and Family Therapy today to see how we can help. Contact now, 913-229-5691.