One of the greatest rewards of being a parent is watching your children grow. The excitement of witnessing your child’s 1st steps or hearing their 1st words is hard to exaggerate. As the years roll by, scrapbooks become as important to parents as the writings of their favorite authors.
Home movies are more entertaining than this year’s Academy Awards winners. Parents with no interest in history suddenly become meticulous historians of their child’s life, and as other historians do parents remember battles-of the bottle, of the pacts, momentous pacts and treaties also have their day.
Parents also grow. They learn to deal with the trauma of the beheaded toy bears, boogey men in the dark, departing friends and illnesses in brothers, sisters and pets.
In just a few years, parents watch their children grow from complete dependence to total independence. Watching children grow is fun, but sometimes it can be worrisome. Parents are easily and naturally concerned that their children aren’t developing properly.
Sometimes parents worry unnecessarily. As a society, we often seem preoccupied with predicting the future success of our offspring. A child throwing a ball at an early age should prompt excitement but not necessarily anticipation of a career in sports.
Children who read at an early age may be destined for mechanical or artistic interests rather than a scholarly life. So we start to wonder, is my child normal? Why is Johnny so short? Why does George still wet the bed? Why didn’t my 2nd child start walking as early as my 1st?
Our society seems preoccupied with predicting the future of success of children, naturally causing parents to worry, and the spirit of competitiveness lives in all of us. We worry unnecessarily about things such as whether Suzie will walk before the little girl across the street does.
Although children are constantly developing in all areas, certain areas can develop more rapidly because of the individual needs of the child.
For example, consider a child growing up in a large family. Whereas most of us have dinner with many people only on holidays, this child may experience these fun chaotic events every night. To survive, that child may well develop quick hands at an early age. But later in childhood, a child with a smaller family will catch up
The opposite seems to occur in the development of walking ability. With many heavier bodies running about, a small child in a large family is likely to be knocked frequently. It’s common to see late walking in these children.
But they often develop the skill or rapid creeping or scooting. Children are constantly developing and adapting to their environments. They are adapting in the way that is best for them and not according to schedules printed in textbooks.