There are four main ways a child develops these are physical, emotional, intellectual and social. The first way of development that I am going to talk about is physical development. Physical development is all to do with the body. In physical development there are three main skills the first one is motor skills. This means that a child leans to coordinate his muscles and his
brain. This skill often requires a lot of practise before becoming automatic. The next skill is gross motor skill this skill uses the larger muscles in your body for running, walking, climbing, kicking a ball and throwing. The final skill that a child needs is fine manipulative skill this skill need precise use of the hands and fingers for things like pointing, drawing, doing up buttons, and using a knife and fork.
A child’s emotions could mean some of these things fear, excitement, affection, happiness, worry, sadness, anger, contentment, pride, jealousy, shyness, frustration, distress and disgust. Young children show all these emotions and many more. Emotional development of a child’s ability to recognise and control their feelings. This is influenced by a child’s inborn temperament, their environment and their state of health.
The next key point I am going to look at is intellectual development. The intellectual development is of the mind and thinking of the brain. This is the part that is used for recognising, reasoning, knowing and understanding. A child’s mind is active from the time they are born. Day by day a child’s mind develops as they:
- leans about people
- leans about new things
- leans new skills
- leans to communicate
- acquires more memories
- gains more experience
As a child’s mind develops they become more intelligent. How intelligent the child becomes depends on two things they are the genes which control how intelligent you are and the environment which the child grows up in. All the way through childhood the genes and environment continually interacted to produce people minds in different ways for example a child’s ability to remember things, the artistic or musical skills, languages and mathematics.
The last key point is social development Social development will help children in the process of leaning skills and attitudes. This makes it easier when a child meets a new person in their community. Social development is very different in many countries. There are many variations in eating habits, standards of hygiene, forms of greeting, attitude to dress, religion and moral. There are a number of different activities that can encourage children to socialise. the activities which encourage social development are the ones which bring a child into company of other people both inside and outside the home for example:
- family outings
- parent and toddler groups
- play groups and nursery schools
- opportunities to play with other children like friends
To choose an area of development I intended to choose an area of development by observing my child and see what things she can do. I will be observing my chosen child over a certain number of weeks. Here is some background information on my chosen child that I am going to study. The child I have chosen to study her name is Ruby – Louise. She is 16 weeks old and she lives with her mother Lisa and father Jim. Ruby – Louise’s personality is she is really funny when she tries new things she is also very sociable and determined to do something. Ruby – Louise’s interests is other babies that she meets at the play group called Poppings. In the physical development Ruby – Louise can roll over, hold herself up and walk with help. Ruby – Louise is also progressing in the sociable development because she loves other people and other babies and she is a very happy and bubbly baby. In terms of emotional development she has bonded well with both her mother and father. Intellectually she babbles and recognises parents and other relatives of the parents.
I have decided to choose the physical development because Ruby – Louise is just learning to do all the physical bits like sit up and roll over. So this is the area of development I decided to do is physical development. I didn’t chose intellectual development because she is along way of being able to do most of it like talking and remembering. Here is some possible ways I could get information.
I have decided to use the internet for one of my references because it is up to date with information, it is easy to access at home and at school and there is a wide variety of sites with information about children. I can also use leaflets because there are plenty of places you can find them but there is one disadvantage of using leaflets and that is are they up to date. Another reference that I could use could be mothers who have had children in the past. I could use newspapers as a reference but the only disadvantage is there might not be article in there about my area of development. Magazines are a good source because then you can look at your area of development in magazines like practical parenting.
