Understanding Your Child's Development Pattern

By recognising the developmental patterns of early childhood, parents can help provide guidance and activities suitable for their children and ease their transition from one stage to the next.

It is important that at each stage parents do their best to meet the needs of their developing child.

With encouragement, praise and a bit more patience, parents can develop a strong and meaningful relationship with their child, laying the foundations of understanding early, from toddlerhood to pre-school age.

Although no two children are exactly alike (mine are almost like North and South Poles) definite development patterns can be observed in young children aged two to six years. These patterns was what I observed during my 3 years of helping out in a YWCA Child Care Centre when I was in my teens. I will broadly outlined the patterns here to help parents understand the age-group characteristics and be more effective in their parenting over the week. So doesn't seem like too much to read for a start.

Let's start off with my younger son's age.

The Trying 2s
Characteristics

Negativism "No, No, No...!" is a very common response from children at this age, to everything parents ask them to do. They really say "No" without really meaning it sometimes.
- My younger son, BinBin, can say "No" very loudly in a split second after I ask him :"Do you want to try this?" handing him a sweet he has never seen before..."NO" to a sweet, duh....

Temper Tantrums Two-year-olds who can't get what they want throw tantrums very quickly, but get over them very quickly too.
- continuation from above, when I turn to my elder son and pass him that same sweet, BinBin simply went crazy and start banging his head on the floor or wall....I am serious, my BinBin really does that. I guess that's probably why you can feel humps on different parts of his head. He just continues till you GRAB HIM. He will just continue to struggle like a fish out of the sea. Thank God he has tone down so much now. What I did to prevent head banging was to just leave the sweet in front of him, on the floor or on the table, after some minutes, he will come back for it, even though he may walk away as if "I said 'NO', didn't you hear me?"

Great Curiosity They test it, taste it, press it, squeeze it...so don't leave anything dangerous lying around!
-Ya man, he practically feel all his food. He was rolling and squeezing the Roti Prata (an indian pancake) during lunch, even though I have already tear them into small bite-size, like as if he was playing Play Doh.

Possessiveness and Destructiveness Children at two definitely do not like to share their things. They also like to find out about everything, so toys can be easily broken or torn apart.
-I had to keep reminding him "Love your toys and they will stay longer with you" or "When you slam the car on the floor, the car can feel the pain, it thinks that you don't like him". You know, when you use words of emotion, like love, sad, angry...it works on kids really well. At least it works on all the kids I have come across so far.

Tips for Handling Two-year-olds This may seem like a trying period but there is really no need to be overly concerned. Two-year-olds are at a stage of exploring the world around, trying to master skills on their own. They seek to achieve autonomy and to satisfy their curiosity. Thus, when they are frustrated, they have outbursts of tantrums and anger.

• Provide lots of room for exploration in their environment. Offer play things they can touch, press and taste. Give them toys that boost creativity and encourage exploration.

I love to give BinBin a big piece of blank paper and crayons. He will start drawing lines and circles...and when you ask him "what are you drawing" he can actually tell you a Story. By the way, my BinBin speech development was very much ahead of kids of his age. He can speak as much things as his brother, a 4year old. Other common toys would be lego and building blocks

• Distract the child when he is frustrated by providing alternative activities. Or, give him a hand if he can't cope with a certain task.

Observe that the frustration starts coming up, quickly grab something else and start introducing him to the new stuff. Once the frustration becomes 'full blown' its harder to distract him.

• Provide durable toys so they are not easily broken.
• Make a game out of the task you want him to do if the child responds with a "No!"