Growing up

Content

Child development is an interactive process, that is not determined solely by genes. Child development is a dance between nature and nurture. We are born with a set of genes that are passed down from generation, however, how those genes work depends on the individual’s experiences and this is called epigenetics.   

Each nurturing adult, whether that be a parent, family member, early years practitioner, teacher, health professional, or children’s services colleague across local authorities, local organisations, and charities will directly or indirectly contribute to child development. It is crucial that influential, nurturing adults and environments meet the needs of children and young people so they can grow into their unique selves.  

Five Domains of Child Development

 There are various labels for development domains, and many cross over or use slightly different terminology. It is useful to understand there are different child development domains to identify what activities and experiences support each domain. By raising children with a variety of experiences across the domains, the brain and body can sync and attune with each other. Imagine scaffolding, representing different elements in the five domains, connecting, thus creating a solid structure.

Raising Children Together used the five domains when developing How I Smashed a Plate recognising a solid foundation can support a complex and flexible scaffold that makes every child unique.

Each domain needs a careful graduated approach. Holding a utensil first requires grip and finger dexterity and so each domain has a set of milestones to break down the graduation into obtainable steps.

To offer examples, the milestones for each domain described below are examples of a neurotypical baby. What we know is every child is unique and therefore timeframes are average. Predominantly, we are raising children using neurotypical games and measuring milestones through a neurotypical lens. Neurodiverse babies may miss milestones in a domain or take longer to reach a milestone. The most important thing is to have a stepping-stone approach ensuring all children can meet their full potential. It’s stage, not age 😁.

Physical Domain

 

As soon as a baby is born, they quickly begin to learn how to use their body. By 4 weeks old a baby is learning to use their reflexes such as rooting and sucking. By 3 months, a baby is kicking and waving limbs. They watch their hand movements and can hold a rattle for a few seconds. By 6 months they are rolling over and passing a toy from one hand to another. By 1 year, they can crawl or shuffle, and use their pincer grip to pick up leftover food found on the floor 😁. By 2 years, they are walking, climbing on furniture, building tower bricks, drawing circles and dots, and feeding themselves.

To do these things, they are figuring out how their body does stuff and start to practice developing fine and gross motor skills such as strength, balance, and dexterity. There are many receptors across the body coming online to help navigate the body. For example, the proprioceptive sensory receptors are found in the muscles and connective tissues stimulated by movement and gravity. 

Did you know that fine and gross motor skills can help regulation? The many different types of receptors across the body are useful in gathering information to notice signs of safety or danger.

Cognitive Domain

 

This domain is imperative to learning and risk-assessing. At birth, the baby learns they can blink – a reaction to bright light. By 4 weeks old. A baby can make eye contact and follow a dangling ball. By 3 months, a baby can follow the movement of small and large objects. By 6 months, a baby is curious and easily distracted with stimuli. A baby will fix sight and reach out to grasp objects… to put in their mouth 😁. By 1 year, a child will deliberately drop toys to see them fall (it’s called casting). They can recognise familiar people. By 2 years, they are turning book pages, sorting shapes or colours, forming words, and exploring how things work.

Core skills such as concentration, assessing situations, help the child to learn every day. Between 3-5yrs, executive functioning rapidly develops. Skills such as flexible thinking and working memory help the child to connect their body and brain with the outside stimulus they are surrounded by.

Did you know executive functions make intentional self-regulation possible?

Emotional Domain

 

All emotions have meaning. Identifying the meaning behind the emotions supports positive mental health. By 4 weeks, a baby will communicate their feelings to the main caregiver and respond to them. By 3 months, a baby will laugh and be amused. By 6 months, a baby can show fear or distress to strangers. A 1-year-old is more assertive and can show clear anger outbursts. At 2 years, the only way they can deal with anger and frustration is by crying, hitting, or screaming (they first need to know what the feelings are before they can learn to deal with the feelings differently – right?)

Identifying feelings and building strategies to regulate emotions are lifelong skills. Resilience, being flexible in situations, responding in the moment, and reflecting afterward that is appropriate and proportionate to the situation are options within the emotional domain.  

Did you know most hormones affect mood and emotions? Going outside to boost serotonin, or having cuddles to boost oxytocin are just two ways to support emotions. 

Social Domain

 

Humans are inherently social. It is easier to survive if someone cares for you. The complexity of the psyche requires interactions we gain from another. By 4 weeks, a baby can imitate facial expressions. By 6 weeks old, a baby can socially smile, especially at the main caregiver. By 4 months, a baby is vocalising with parents to connect. By 6 months, a baby will show interest in other babies, and be interested in social interaction. A 1-year-old can play alone and imitate sounds, gestures, or actions to get the main caregiver’s attention. At 2 years, they enjoy other children’s company, are reluctant to share toys, and can show concern if another child is upset (their nervous system detects another person’s nervous system is activated).

Influential adults have an opportunity to role model communication and the ability to adapt behaviour in social situations so children and young people can practice such skills. The choice of words, eye contact, and the ability to study and interpret other’s language and body language depends on the child’s life experiences. 

Did you know social connection can improve immune systems and regulate emotions? The body will release less inflammatory processes when with people (who are safe). 

Pro-Social Domain

 

Humans who enjoy connections, at some point, will require to be pro-social. They will learn to help, share, empathise, and comfort each other. It is the ability to recognise what is needed in friendships and relationships. The benefits of being pro-social are that people tend to get along with each other, feel confident in relationships, and have a sense of belonging. People care about their environment, are good role models, and contribute to society.

From 2 years old, children start learning that other people think, feel, and experience things differently from themselves. Prosocial behaviour develops when children start to see other people’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences as important. For example, a toddler likes to help by tidying up. By the age of five, they may let a grown-up know someone is hurt or they may try to comfort someone who is hurt. They may begin to recognise what fairness is, especially if they feel someone is being unfair to them.

Being pro-social is the internal standards and values of social responsibility. To know when to put the needs of others, for a higher purpose ahead of one’s own. 

Did you know that helping others helps with one’s stress and increases positive mental health?

Developing the 5 domains in Families, Schools, and Communities

 

Now, lets add another layer to child development using Urie Bronfenbrenner’s important research.  Bronfenbrenner is a psychologist who wanted to understand human development. He recognised that children’s experiences with parents, caregivers, schools, and communities had a huge impact on how children thought, what words they used, and what was important to them. The people and environments had a direct influence on how the children were raised. 

Urie Bronfenbrenner Ecological System

 

The bronfenbrenner ecological contextual framework identifies how each layer or system supports and contributes to child development (the 5 domains described above). The inner layer called the microsystem highlights the importance of the main caregivers and how they influence the child’s development. Consider how the parent, or educator encourages balancing (physical domain), comforts (emotional domain), learns to read (cognitive domain), celebrates events (social domain), and promotes sharing (pro-social domain).

The second layer, called the mesosystem, considers how the interaction of influential people such as a parent, grandparents, foster carers, and educators interact. Do they offer consistent messages and work together to achieve goals? For example, at home and school, the child learns to regulate their feelings in a pro-social manner using the 5 domains. By recognising the stress sensations in the body (physical domain), identifying and labelling the emotion (emotional domain), choosing a regulation strategy, like breathing or tapping (cognitive domain), asking a friend to help them with their feelings (social domain) because they understand breathing or tapping is a behaviour that is acceptable in society as a healthy way to respond (pro-social domain).

The third layer, called the exosystem, and the fourth layer, called the macrosystem acknowledge if caregivers in the microsystem are supported by communities, society, and culture, through policy, employers, education systems, health care, etc then the caregiver is much more likely to raise children appropriate to the culture, and society they are born into.

Not to miss out on the fifth layer called the chronosystem. As the research continued to develop the ecological framework, time was recognised as a factor. As people and environments change over time, so does child development. For example, bereavement at 7yrs or 12yrs or 17yrs would look different and shape how the child (young person) develops.

To recap so far, every child’s unique experiences when growing up will shape their 5 domains. A child born in an inner-city, that lives with parents, and grandparents will have different experiences (not worse or better), from a child born in a village, that lives with an uncle and 3 cousins. Those experiences will shape the 5 domains.

Attachment Theory is a Foundation for Healthy Child Development

 

Raising Children Together has a dedicated area describing attachment as it’s an important function of child development. Main caregivers have plenty of opportunities to develop attachment, however, other influential adults can make valuable contributions.

A child is born with a need, to attach and attune to an adult so they can survive. Attachment is the term to explain when a person is feeling threatened, in danger, or (physically or emotionally) unsafe, they will rely on strategies to return to safety to survive. A child will rely on influential adults to help, thus building an attachment to said caregiver. Those learned strategies (healthy or unhealthy) to keep safe and to survive continue to be used unless another strategy replaces the original.

A child who feels safe, and comfort and has proximity and predictability will seek learning opportunities. On the other hand, a child living in fearful or unsafe surroundings becomes hypervigilant about danger, spending more time trying to stay safe rather than seeking opportunities to learn (usually through play). 

Two Attachment Scenario’s

1) Imagine a child is trying to fasten their coat. The difficult task makes them feel frustrated and angry. They soon seek their secure base (influential adults) or the caregiver soon clocks the child’s need for help. If the caregiver responds kindly with reassurance, the child will quickly return to a calmer state and continue to learn. 

2) A Teenager struggles to empathise with their friend, and they argue over the phone. The parent supports the teenager through comfort and proximity, returning the teenager to a calm state. Once the teenager is their usual self, coaching tools can explore empathy that is appropriate and proportionate.

Caregivers and colleagues who help develop healthy attachment strategies will help to enhance the 5 child development domains because a child who feels safe will naturally want to learn. For example, practice sports skills (physical and potentially the remaining 4), get involved in a science experiment (cognitive and potentially the remaining 4), ask for help when overwhelmed (emotional), want to go to a playground (social and potentially the remaining 4), and gives their last Haribo to a friend when they drop theirs on the floor (pro-social)… well maybe give their caregivers last Haribo to their friend 😁 

Stage Not Age

It’s good to have milestones in each domain to help strengthen skills. It can lead caregivers to feel guilty if milestones are not met or even worse to judge ‘shortfalls’.

Child development milestones and academic markers are required and needed. Childcare and education settings are monitored and therefore they have a very hard task to continue focussing on the student whilst not putting undue pressure on the student to meet assessment criteria to ensure the education setting is rated good or outstanding.

As each child is unique, the undue pressure will increase the risk of distress and will be counter-productive – they will no longer be in the part of the brain to learn. Above all, reflect on how each development domain scaffolds together, how can a strength help e.g. how can a social domain help their cognitive domain?   

To Conclude

 

Child development occurs with the people and surroundings a child experiences. Interweaving many different stimuli and opportunities and having positive role models, will contribute to the 5 domains, create healthy attachment strategies, and shape a child’s worldview.

Here is a Ted Talk that you might find interesting.

Michelle x (I’m off to have some fun)