The 5 Stages of Child Development: An Infographic for New Parents
As a parent, you want to ensure that your child reaches their milestones and develops at a healthy rate. But what does that look like, exactly? Here’s a breakdown of the five stages of child development, from infancy to adolescence. Each stage has its unique characteristics and challenges – but with a little patience and plenty of love, you’ll navigate them all successfully!
Do you have children at home?
The fact that a child is the focus of all the attention and the presence of a baby is the best thing that has ever happened.
It’s hard to believe that our little ones are growing up so fast!
As they journey through different stages of child development, we can expect a few things. Learn more about the stages of child development and what to look out for during each one. By being aware of these developmental milestones, you can help your child grow and thrive in their early years.
What is child development and why is it important?
Child Development is the biological, physical, intellectual, linguistic, emotional and behavioral capabilities of a child from conception to adulthood and eventually death.
Child development is important to understand in order to better establish a child’s physical, emotional and social needs. Ensuring a long-term positive impact on their growth and opportunities throughout life
5 Stages of Child Development by age
The five phases of child development milestones can help parents better understand how to connect with a child appropriately and create an engaging interaction. The 5 stages of child development are
- Newborn development
- Infancy
- Early childhood
- Preschool-age
- School-age
Let’s take a look at understanding child development stages by age
1: Newborn development (0-3 months)
Newborns are born with reflexes; they blink when something touches their eyes, stretch if their arms and legs are pulled; they will pay attention to people’s faces. Observe strong patterns, particularly in black and white photography. Able to recognize the sound of your voice.
It starts to coo and generates more complex sounds than a plain cry. A child can bring his hands into proximity to his eyes and mouth. These first few months are a time of rapid change and progress for a baby’s development. Communication skills are very important at this level. Doctors recommend that you talk to your infant frequently since it will assist them in learning how to communicate with other people.
Spend a lot of time and energy at this point. In addition to seeing close-up objects and recognizing fewer smells, a baby can also smile or cry when they need something and shift her head from one side to the other.
2: Infancy (3- 12 months)
Early in life, newborns rapidly acquire numerous new skills and knowledge. During the first few months of life, a newborn can recognize familiar faces, identify his mother and father and begin to speak. At this point, he’ll Recognize and smile at individuals in the distance. Eyes begin to track objects.
He starts to regain composure briefly. May put his hands to his mouth in an attempt to self-soothe. He can raise her head. When lying on his tummy, he begins to push up. They can move their arms and legs more smoothly. They can respond to people’s calls to their names, and even if they are kept upright, they can even bounce a little bit.
Gestures are the first means of communication used by infants. At four months of age, the baby starts to giggle and laugh. Copies facial expressions, reaches for a toy with one hand, holds her head steady, unsupported. Pushes up elbows when lying on tummy.
Children may be able to start crawling on their 6th month of age, but others may not even be able to roll over from their tummy yet. The development stages of every child are different. Still, theoretically, babies will follow these milestones throughout their first year of life at their own pace. They begin pointing out details and even taking a position of strength to back them up. Children can mimic sound and movements.
3: Early childhood (1- 3 years)
Toddlers are full of energy. They are always moving, exploring their environment, and experiencing new sensations and emotions. Toddlers often make leaps in physical growth during this phase of development. Between the ages of one and three years, children learn to walk independently, climb stairs, and leap. They are constantly looking for new items and ideas that interest them.
Intellectual development is important at this stage. Attempt to emotionally connect with child because Babies are born with the capacity to express basic emotions such as joy or sorrow.
Therefore, attempt to engage them at this stage. Attachment between a parent and their kid is the foundation for a child’s self-esteem development, which results in positive emotional, intellectual, and social outcomes as the youngster gains the confidence to explore new things and connections.
Additionally, it decreases the likelihood that the youngster would establish an unhealthy lifestyle. Certain ages exhibit temper outbursts and have anger management challenges. Parenting here has to teach them how to behave in these situations rather than punishing and comparing them to another child or his sister, which results in the youngster’s low self-esteem.
4: Preschools age (3-4 years)
It is a child’s learning phase; as he explores things, he would ask certain repeated questions to their parents. It will increase his cognitive as well linguistic milestone. A child will adapt new language if you try to talk to him in a specific language. By four, he will say five to six sentences and entire sentences.
He will speak plainly, even if they are not understandable until they reach the age of four, which is the time when your youngster will begin to bombard you with questions. Even though it might be an annoyance at times, asking questions is a natural developmental milestone that your child is interested in.
5: School-age:
He’s now old enough to go to school on his own, making this the most significant time of his life. When your child is in school, they learn to live a healthy lifestyle. It’s been a period of steady progress and improvement.
Adaptability, balance, coordination, and endurance are just a few examples of these abilities. Your child’s self-confidence and self-esteem will grow tremendously due to learning and developing these abilities, as will their sense of success and independence.
Child development can be broken down further into 10 development stages.
What are the 10 stages of development?
The 10 Stages of Development are Prenatal, Infancy, Early Childhood, Mid Childhood, Adolescence, Early Adulthood, Mid Adulthood and Death
Prenatal Development.: The Prenatal Development has 3 major stages that starts at conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg to form a zygote. The germinal (week 1-2), embryonic (3-8), and feta (9-40)
Infancy: Infancy is the developmental stage from birth until the attainment of language. This stage is often referred to as toddlerhood and is about 1-2 yrs.
Early Childhood: Early childhood is a vital stage where children from toddlerhood to six years old will build their cognitive, language and socio-emotional development
Middle Childhood: Children will build bonds, learn to form and foster friendships and social relationships. This skill will ensure that the child is able to form successful relationships in later years.
Adolescence: Adolescence are the years from puberty to adulthood (12-20 years old). Cognitive, psychological and social development continues to grow during this time. Between this time children will form their own identity for their later years.
Early Adulthood: Early adulthood (21-40 years old) Would have established oneself as an independent person, form stable emotions, are a part of a community, while focusing on forming friendship, romantic relationships, and picking out careers and often times raising families.
Middle Adulthood: during middle adulthood (40-60 years old) the aging process speeds up and is characterized by a decline in vision, hearing, and the immune-system function starts to decline. In women, reproductive capabilities also decline as they approach the onset of menopause and the end of their menstrual cycle at 50 years old.
Death: There are three main stages of dying: the early stage, middle stage and last stage. these three stages are often accompanied with five psychological stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
in the early stage there is drop in interest in food as eating becomes more of a burden the body starts conserving energy and does not require as much nourishment as in early development stages. Middle stage comes with a change in physical appearance.
The body’s circulation slows down, as blood is reserved for helping major internal organ’s function making the body appear darker. The last stage of dying, blood circulation to internal organs slow, reducing metabolism. Breathing becomes shallow and irregular and eventually stops.
Why is early Child development milestone important?
Early childhood development is important because children are like sponges; they absorb the world around them and act accordingly. Parents have the responsibility to help shape their child’s character early on, which will help them to be successful throughout life.
The most important thing parents can do for their child’s early development is to read to them. Reading to a child helps them develop language skills, social skills and also teaches them about the world.
The act of reading can also strengthen a parent-child bond and create memories that last a lifetime. To be more exact, it directly affects children’s behaviour, social intelligence, mental boundaries, ability to build strong relations, school competency, and degree of achievement throughout childhood and adulthood.
Children grow and develop rapidly during the first five years of their lives. Motor (physical), language and communication, cognitive and social/emotional behaviour are among these domains.
1: Cognitive Development:
Developing a child’s cognitive abilities is an important part of a child’s growth. Children’s abilities to think critically and solve problems and their dispositions play a role in making sense of their surroundings.
You must support your child’s cognitive development from infancy on, as it provides the foundation for future academic and personal success. Children’s mental growth is positively affected when parents use positive parenting methods like those described here because every child is an individual with a specific capacity for conceptualization.
Your child’s cognitive development is greatly influenced by the quality of your interactions with them daily.
2: Social and Emotional Development:
When it comes to shaping a child’s long-term brain structure and subsequent behavioural patterns in adulthood, the early years of a child’s social-emotional development are crucial. A child’s social and emotional development is influenced by interactions with others, such as caretakers, family members, and peers.
Young children demonstrate social skills by taking turns playing with others and following simple rules. When young child cares for a crying friend, they demonstrate emotional awareness, which is the ability to recognize and understand one’s own and another’s feelings.
3: Speech and Language Development:
Communication abilities such as speech and language are what we generally utilize to communicate with one another. These abilities are developed during the first years of life. When a youngster is between the ages of 5 and 6, they acquire the fundamentals of speech. Please make an effort to speak and read to your child frequently to help them develop these skills.
4: Fine Motor Skill Development:
Children’s fine motor abilities refer to the little muscles of the fingers, foot, toes, and face, including the lips and eyes. Fine motor control enables individuals to develop coordination between various muscles, such as hand-eye coordination. Fine motor abilities are a component of the overall physique. They provide youngsters with the confidence and independence they need to experience the world.
5: Gross Motor Skill Development:
In early infancy, growth rates are slow, with the average child growing two and a half inches in height and gaining between five and seven pounds each year on average. However, there were significant improvements in gross motor ability during this period.
Ref: https://www.backtobasickids.com/2020/01/28/5-stages-of-child-development/
Children must use their large arms and legs to develop gross motor abilities. Walking, running, throwing, lifting, and kicking are examples of gross motor motions essential for daily physical activity like walking and running.
While toddlers and preschoolers as young as two and three years old have begun to walk and run with ease, their coordination and balance are still in the early stages of development.
What is the role of parenting here?
Parents want to do everything possible for their children, especially when helping them develop into happy, healthy people. Every child’s development follows a predictable timeline; however, this is not always the case.
You should not be concerned about why your child is different from others; every youngster acquires knowledge uniquely. Several factors are responsible, including the child’s surroundings, health, genetics, and how your family members interact with him.
Ref: https://www.cuemath.com/learn/importance-of-parents/
Don’t compare
Children are not all the same. Every child is unique and has their personality, interests, abilities, and challenges. Children also develop at different rates and in their ways. Developing healthy children means developing their potential to be happy, confident, and successful later in life.
One of the basic foundations for a healthy child is to support them as they grow up physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, and spiritually with lots of love, care, and attention from parents (and caregivers).
Genetics
Genetics plays a very important role in a child’s early development. Baby adapts several characteristics from his family genetics. Every child is unique and has a distinctive ability to grasp concepts. Some children demand excessive attention from their parents. They become demotivated, aggressive, and distressed when they do not receive it.
Each youngster goes through numerous stages of development. The pattern of growth is consistent throughout all children. Some children progress quickly through a phase, while others take a long period to mature. Each development stage contains a set of development milestones that should meet.
Developmental milestones are actions or physical abilities that newborns and children exhibit as they mature and develop. Certain children may not meet certain milestones, which may signify developmental abnormalities or hereditary diseases.
However, this does not mean the infant is abnormal; it simply means that parents must devote additional effort to their child. Your baby’s brain develops at a higher rate during the first two years than at any other time. Early experiences are critical, and their consequences can last a lifetime.
Ref: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002002.htm
Don’t panic
Parents need to understand that every child has a different level of approach toward things. Child growth is a long-term process that requires patience. Physical, verbal, intellectual, and cognitive development change through childhood and early adolescence.
Adaptability to his external environment is defined by a multi-stage process that determines how well your child adapts to his external environment or how well he recognizes and reacts to various behaviours in his surroundings.
Thus, it is essential for parents, caregivers, and teachers to precisely understand what occurs during these early stages of development to more effectively address a child’s requirements and ensure that they have the greatest possible start in life.
Each section has developmental milestones that the child should reach to ensure normal and healthy brain growth. From infancy to adolescence, children’s emotions, personalities, behaviours, thoughts, and speech change as they learn to understand and engage with the world around them.
Final Thoughts
Remember that every child is unique. You should avoid pressuring him or comparing him to his siblings because every individual has their view of the world. Parenting is the process of raising a child with a good mindset to ensure their healthy growth as they grow older.
Positive parenting has a direct effect on the mental development of children. Because a child’s first school is his house, positive parenting is extremely important in this situation. A regular schedule and bedtime routine play a significant role in child development regardless of age. Make an effort to develop relationships with your child, give him time, talk to him, and show him love and care so that he grows into a better person.
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