Learning
Skills

Your child acquires learning skills as they solve problems, analyze, as well as act on, replicate, and refine behavior in new circumstances. Such skills are developed through various playing activities like sorting objects by shape and color or using, manipulating, and constructing them in more intentional ways. They are also developed when your child watches cause and effect in motion while tumbling a stack of blocks. Your child benefits from discovering the world on their own, making mistakes, and being around a parental presence that allows learning to unfold, without too much intervention. As the parent, you can model activities for your child so they see the learning process take place. Soon they will mimic your behavior, and start to generate it on their own. Normalize “baby steps,” “grit,” and trial and error. Making messes makes for good learning, too!

Imagination &
Creativity

Inside your child is the great capacity to engage meaningfully without rules or structure, to pretend, create, test boundaries, and experiment in a truly unique way. Their imagination and creativity are nurtured through toys that invite flexible, open play, active engagement in playing pretend, interacting with figures, animals, and make-believe settings. Let them play dress up. Have them hear and engage in storytelling, in various forms of art, construction, and movement, and generally encourage them to follow the trails of the budding ideas that reflect their individuality. As the parent, enjoy this most precious energy and further it by asking your child questions about a world they have built in their mind, participate in that world, and give it legitimacy. Help your child try on ideas and possibilities – like a submarine toy or water cannon they imagine using out on the open sea – encourage the skills they enjoy, and model for them how to think outside the box and be creative.

Knowledge
Acquisition

Your child possesses a growing pool of information, rules, and points of understanding for how things work, like physical properties, math concepts, and spatial relationships. This pool is expanded with everything they do and see, as ideas are sharpened and reinforced each time they see gravity in action or watch a chain of events unfold in new ways. For you as the parent, there are lots of opportunities to give a vocabulary to pieces of knowledge, give objects names, show your child the patterns, and help them see how that knowledge is applied in a variety of situations. Praise the pursuit of knowledge as at this stage there is no specific goal – the point is to just be present in the learning.

Curiosity

By nature, your child’s instinct is to explore, question, seek out order, rules, detect irregularities, and try to figure out the world. This is the basis for active learning. From putting objects in their mouth to seemingly getting into every corner of the house, they can be a non-stop bundle of inquisitive energy. As the parent, you can create safe spaces in the house for your child to explore to their heart’s content. For example in a space without exposed electrical outlets or tiny pieces, your child can be mobile, test things out, teethe, and touch, in a secure way that also gives you some peace of mind. Try to embrace the concept of “yes” instead of saying “no” unless truly needed. Encourage curiosity that is open-ended, anywhere and everywhere.

Fine Motor
Skills

Movements of the small muscles like those in the hands and wrists depend on fine motor skills. These skills begin early on with your child opening their hand to reach for something, and set the groundwork for what is to come. From when your child uses a precise pincer grasp to pluck cheerios off of the table, to when much, much later they start using a proper fork – plus all the food thrown in between! Encourage play that invites repeated picking up, shaking, rattling, and rolling, or passing objects between two hands which develops fine motor skills. Fitting pieces together, spinning gears, activating buttons, and using hand-eye coordination will also nurture this development. Let your child discover these movements independently, or model them for them and discover together. Most importantly, make sure your child starts to notice their own successes. Their inner sense of approval is most important.

Gross Motor
Skills

These skills involve movements of large muscle groups to develop physical strength, kick, balance, sit, and eventually crawl and walk. Your child is developing these skills early on when they are lying on their back kicking, or when they are engaging their core muscles during tummy time. The stages of these skills may look different from child to child. Your child may scoot around on one leg before crawling regularly, they may cruise for a long time before walking, or they may skip some stages altogether. You as the parent can encourage each stage that is natural for your child, offering physical support to promote it – for example, a tummy time pillow. Organize the space so that it is challenging but also enabling and safe. Or stoop to be at eye-level with them, and encourage their effort with your words and presence.

Senses

Your baby uses sights, sounds, touch, taste, and smell – and very often a combination of these – to explore and learn about the world around them. Multisensory experiences stimulate the active level of your child’s sensory paths, promoting them to seek out new sensory experiences and make sense of them – meaning the process is furthered the more it is fed. For you as the parent, you can model sensory engagement – stooping to smell a flower, or reveling in the multiple textures and sounds from a toy. When you present diverse sensations to your child, you open up their range of experience. Also, be available to regulate the amount of stimulation. Notice when your child is tired and cranky and the light and noise around them becomes irritating so you can tone them down.

Coordination

Hand-eye coordination as well as the complex coordination between two hands or two feet, allow your baby to start to manipulate and interact with the world purposefully. Your child uses coordination when they grab an object that they want, and later when they run up to a ball, pick it up, pass it between two hands, and throw it towards a friend. Encourage this kind of purposeful action early on, giving them the opportunity to use these skills by not doing everything for them. Assuming your child is ready, instead of putting a rattle into their hand, place it in front of them and they will work to pick it up and shake it themselves. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention – and in this case, coordination!

Comunication

The ability to produce, receive, and ultimately interpret messages begins to develop early on. It involves sounds, body language, facial expressions, eventually words, and often channels emotions. When it comes to opportunities for communication and getting chatty, the world is your oyster! Character toys with big eyes make for good friends at an early stage when your baby’s instinct is to seek out faces. Imaginative scenes are perfect launching pads for you to tell stories, sing songs, narrate what your baby is doing, or have a fantastical conversation with a farm animal. When seated at eye-level with the room, your baby can babble at passersby, and when on the floor with other babies, they become accustomed to connecting to others even as they engage in parallel play. As the parent, you can expand your child’s vocabulary to include colors, shapes, numbers, and objects, along with descriptive words like “soft,” “wet,” or “bouncy.” Give words to their actions with verbs like “crawling” and eating.” And of course it’s never too soon to give your child words for their bubbling emotions.

Self
Expression

Your child’s self-expression is their opportunity to convey their particular experiences and feelings, distinct from others, as their own awareness of self develops. They have a spirit of their own – they smile and giggle, they are fearful of particular things and demonstrate a whole range of feelings in their own way. Have your child look at their own reflection in the mirror to help solidify that that image represents them, a unique being. Allow your child to feel comfortable expressing the sensibilities that are specific to them. Remember that their behavior is a reflection of their emotions. They don’t have the words yet, so translate their behavior into words for them. If your child is frustrated and starts crying, you can say, “I see you’re frustrated because you want that ball.”

Cooporation
&
Sharing

Your child will start learning how to work together, take turns, share space or an object. Ultimately they will understand that they are not the center of everything – but rather that other people exist outside of them with feelings and needs that are different from their own. Your child learns about cooperation and sharing when it is modeled around them, seeing people work or play together. They learn from playing with siblings, borrowing and then returning a book from the library, and having to wait in line to get onto the carousel. As the parent, even when your child is small, you can point out objects that your child might not be seeing on their own, to illuminate that you see the world differently than your child and that that is okay because you are two separate people. As they get older, you can work on sharing, which is often more easily accessed through the concept of taking turns. “Now it’s your turn to play with the doll. Now it’s my turn.”

Confidence

A positive self-esteem and sense of confidence is developed when your child experiences accomplishment and success, as well as encouragement and acknowledgment. It is exhibited when they engage with familiar surroundings and people, or when they make use of a toy, knowing exactly how to “make it go.” Sometimes their confidence is bolstered by a much-loved blanket or plush toy. As the parent, you can empower them to feel capable by giving them tasks that may stretch them, but will still allow them to learn and feel proud of that learning. And you can embrace their desire for repetition– allow them to play games in which they “succeed” over and over as that improves self-confidence.