Over the first 8 years of life children mature physically and emotionally, acquire complex cognitive abilities and demonstrate remarkable social skills. This is the time when young children experience rapid development. Any kind of negligence or ignorance on the part of parents and caregivers during these crucial years can severely hinder the child’s development.

There are primarily three aspects to a child’s development: physical, cognitive and social. Parents and caregivers have a critical role to play in order to ensure the healthy overall development of their child. Each aspect of development is equally important; one cannot afford to pay more attention to enhancing their child’s mathematical skills for instance while ignoring the child’s health and nutritional needs.

Parenthood is thus a very demanding responsibility. Parents have very specific roles to play in different circumstances. In a number of instances they may not fulfill these roles effectively; not out of negligence but out of inexperience or lack of proper knowledge.

The purpose of this article to is to draw the attention of parents and caregivers towards the needs of young children and the responsibilities of the parents.

Physical Development
Throughout the early years, children’s physical skills are developing at an astonishing rate. Children begin life with little control of movement and proceed to run, jump, write with a pencil and control their own small and large muscles with growing confidence. This is what is called physical development.

Although humans change physically throughout life, the changes which occur during the first few years are dramatic and eagerly awaited. From the time of a baby's birth, parents eagerly wait for the day when the child will start to roll over, crawl and then walk. Unlike speech and language development, these milestones are at first glance easily determined i.e. either a child walks or s/he doesn't. Within the field of physical development there are separate areas of development which are:

Gross Motor Development
This is the area of physical development that concerns the general ability of children to move around and use the various parts of their body. Activities like rolling over; crawling, walking, running and jumping are gross motor skills. These skills usually involve using the entire body or several parts of the body at one time.

Fine Motor Development
This term refers to skills that require smaller movements and more intricate capabilities. Overall, when we say that children have appropriate fine motor skills, it means that they can use their hands appropriately for children of their age. Fine motor skills in children can be indicated by their adept usage of scissors, using other small tools such as screwdrivers and playing with play dough depending on the child's age and abilities. There are a number of factors that affect the gross motor and fine motor development of any person. Some of them are: Nurture

Nurture
All parents are aware that the first and foremost need is to provide adequate and healthful nutrition to children. Nutrition plays the most influential role in the physical and cognitive development of any human. For the parents of a young infant the nutritional needs are all the more necessary. After all, a child that eats well is more likely to see a healthier tomorrow.

Just as children need a variety of activities to develop different muscles and different emotional and communication skills, they also need a varied diet to satisfy bodily needs. Babies, being at the most sensitive point in their lives, need breast milk to fully develop. It is absolutely necessary that the dependence on cow’s milk and other substitutes be minimal during the first one year. Soon the child can be fed soft food such as mashed fruits and vegetables. Stay alert for any allergies or reactions to certain foods especially if there is a family history of allergies. By the time the child is more than a year old, more solid foods can be introduced.

Although nutrition is a vast subject with endless information that is deemed highly important for any and every parent some essential hints include ensuring that your child drinks clean water frequently during the day keeping the intake of soft drinks at a minimum. Ensure there is regular intake of vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry, fish, beans, eggs and other nutritional foods that are easily available. Start encouraging your children early to eat a growing range of healthy foods and to drink adequate liquids, especially clean water.

Health & Hygiene
The health and physical well-being of your child is one of the most important concerns as a parent. Good hygiene is one of the most effective ways we can protect our children from a lot of illnesses. All babies and small children must follow a daily health and hygiene routine.

A hygienic life style includes bathing regularly and frequently washing your hands. Be sure to wash hands before and after preparing food or baby bottles, after handling diapers, using the bathroom, touching pets and sneezing or coughing.

Good health and hygiene practice also includes taking care when you are handling and storing food. Also remember to always wash fresh fruits and vegetables with cold water. Cook foods thoroughly at recommended temperatures and promptly store in refrigerator or freezer. Many infectious diseases can be prevented by taking care when handling food and regularly washing your hands, especially if someone in the family is unwell.

It is also important to protect against infections by fighting the germs that spread diseases. Germs - viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi - are everywhere around the house. They are on your hands, in the air, in food and, especially, in bathrooms and kitchens. Keeping your child's surroundings clean will keep the entire family healthy. Frequently (and not over obsessively) clean and sanitize surfaces with a cleaning solutions (these are easily available in the market). Do make sure you store their bottles and packages at a place that is out of your children’s reach.

Some helpful health-related tips:

1) Learn about your child’s illnesses, especially chronic conditions like asthma etc.
2) Find a pediatrician or family physician you trust.
3) When your child’s doctor writes a prescription, make sure you can read it.
4) Talk to your doctor about any and all side-effects the prescribed medicines may have on your child.
5) When you pick up your child’s medicine from the pharmacy, confirm with your doctor if it’s the correct medicine and dosage.
6) Ask to get information about your child’s medicines which you can understand when the medicines are prescribed and when you get them.
7) Seek a second opinion on your child’s diagnosis and treatment if you think your child isn’t getting the right care.
8) If your child is having surgery, make sure you, the child’s doctor and the surgeon agree on exactly what will be done.
9) Make sure all health professionals involved in your child’s care have important information, such as whether the child has drug allergies or a chronic condition. Don’t assume they know.

SOURCE: kidshealth.org, familydoctor.org

Play
The importance of play is something that has a significant role as far as a child’s conduct is concerned. The old saying which goes ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ definitely has some truth to it, because play is not only an active pastime; it's also the greatest health promoter (although not all children become dull as a result of no play). Different children react differently and it is very possible that some children resort to misconduct due to lack of recreation and fun activities. This is especially true of children with no siblings. Parents should realize the importance of both outdoor and indoor play in the process of self-discovery and in building of a spiritual connection with nature.

Play is one of the most important ways children learn how to relate to other people. As they play, young children will find cooperation less frustrating and more satisfying than competition. Play enhances a sense of cooperation which is far more valuable traits than having a spirit of cut-throat competition. In addition, when children compete, only one person or team wins; everyone else loses.

It is important to remember not to pressure or demand children to excel at every physical task. The goal is to encourage youngsters to want to become more skilful. Don’t worry if your toddler doesn’t play with the toys you buy her/his like it is shown on the box or the way that your neighbor’s child plays. All children have their own way of playing, exploring and learning. Remember to provide toys for your children that encourage interaction. You and your toddler could entertain yourselves by having pretend conversations on toy telephones etc. At a later stage, you will find that dolls, stuffed toys, toy utensils, etc. also encourage role play in your toddler.

Safety
As parents and caregivers one of our main objectives is to provide children health and safety without being overprotective. It is especially during play that we have to keep a lookout for dangers at home and elsewhere. A good parent is observant of the environment the child spends time in, ensuring that there are no dangerous items the child is exposed to such as nails, glass or other sharp and harmful objects.

Congnitive Development
When we talk about cognitive development we usually mean the ability to read, write and do math and other logical and scientific reasoning. It is a well accepted fact amongst researchers of, child development that a child’s biological set up and environment shapes his or her brain. The biological set up (genes) plays the role of forming all the cells and brain regions while the environment (along with daily experiences) fine tunes and triggers the brain to learn and to adapt to different situations.

Environment & Experiences
At birth, the parts of the brain that handle thinking and emotional and social behavior are considerably underdeveloped. It is the outside world and environment with its plethora of experiences that shape these facilities of the brain. Everything that is sensed through sight, hearing, touch and smell develop the way people think, learn and behave.

Adults can help children develop thinking and reasoning skills by seeking answers to questions and problems together. Children become more creative as you encourage them to come up with their own ideas and solutions and then filter out the right answer. Explore the world with your children. They can be taught to recognize shapes and colors when you are out on the road and similarly introduce them to numbers by counting out loud when you are shopping for groceries and then proceed to basic mathematical operations. One can enhance children’s mathematical skills by introducing them to simple, enjoyable activities involving counting and sorting, simple measurements and calculations.

Nutrition
Many things can affect the growing brain. One of the most essential ones is nutrition. Children who are malnourished have more likeliness of undergoing inadequate brain growth, slower language and weaker memory. Research has reinforced the fact that breast-fed babies result in better learning advantages over babies fed formula milk and other substitutes to the mother’s milk. Some types of food that can enormously affect the adequate growth of your child’s brain are: seafood (highly important for pregnant mothers), red meats, eggs, leafy vegetables, soybeans and walnuts. All of these have been found to greatly enhance improvement in learning, mental alertness and clarity of thinking. They are also known to elevate the child’s mood, improve memory and learning.

Social Development
The social development of children incorporates all elements that influence their everyday behavior and their interaction with others. Each and every aspect of a child’s role as a social being is adapted from observing their parents, their immediate and extended family interactions and relationships.

Language & Communication Skills
As caregivers, we play an important role in helping children learn to communicate with others, and eventually, to read and write. Recent evidence indicates that the role of language is not solely to communicate one’s wants and needs but in fact having a good command of language goes hand-in-hand with the ability to be creative and to imagine new ideas and concepts. The fundamental approach parents ought to have during conversations with their children is to listen with sincere interest, to respond in a way that will enhance and continue conversation, and to allow the child time to formulate their ideas and answers. Waiting for replies is one of the most important things we can do to encourage language growth. Slow down and take the time to listen to what children have to say. Encourage conversation between children by urging them to ask questions of each other and engaging in interesting conversations among themselves. Parents that talk more to their children boost their vocabulary comprehensively. The habit to regularly read to your child also helps expand the child’s vocabulary

Character Development
It is more often than less the principle of practicing what you preach that brings about strong morals and values in children, especially for those in their early years. Every time you are unconditionally generous towards someone in need of help; every time you go out of your way and sacrifice for a charitable cause and every time you show tolerance, concern and sincerity in the way you communicate with other people you are not only providing a role model for your children to view but also making a deep impression on their own way of dealing with the world around them.

For the development of moral principles of the child, parents must organize their own priorities as role models. Placing more value on selfish material benefit than on ensuring equality and fairness creates a Darwinian sentiment in children that makes them a competitive and self-centered survivor with no concern for those around them. Similarly defining behavior that is cooperative and rises above any needy obligation with material wellbeing has equally strong effects on the child’s outlook on life.

The family, being one of the pillars of any social structure, plays a seminal role in strengthening the child’s social skills. In joint family systems, where parents and their children's families often live under a single roof, the definition and responsibilities of a parent or a caregiver are extended to grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and even friends and neighbors. The joint family system is one which is strongly embedded in our culture and our way of living. It minimizes the inclination to be selfish and think of oneself as a ‘individual’ in the social web of life. It is one that is underpinned on cooperation, sharing, tolerance, compromises and mutual understanding of the people you spend your life with. The very bases of this system instill in the child the same sentiments of keeping high the responsibility he has to have towards the people around him.

Positive Disciplining
Parents have a very tricky role to play when it comes to disciplining their children. To boost their children’s confidence parents must allow them to take a few decisions on their own and simultaneously they must also be taught to confront the consequences of those decisions.

A child can get discouraged very easily. It is important that caregivers create a positive environment where the ‘don’t & do’s’ for children are minimized. Young children like to experiment with everything, thus parents should create a safe environment where the child is free to experiment.

Providing children with a variety of interesting activities will keep them happily occupied and out of trouble, thus minimizing the needs for disciplinary action.

Relationships
Parents and caregivers influence their young child’s growth and development much more than may seem apparent. To realize children’s true potential in the various aspects that forms them, it is an absolute obligation that parents provide nurturing and dependable relationships based on security, pleasant interaction, encouragement and affection. Not only do these relationships imbue in children the confidence and the ability to manage stress, insecurities and fear but also inspires social skills, emotional growth and emotional regulation.

Like adults, children need to be held, cuddled and encouraged to express their affection for others. Maintaining physical closeness is important, as children feel a particular connection with their parents through physical touch.

Your attitude toward emotions, especially negative ones like sadness or anger, can shape how your kids learn to handle their own feelings. We all have different approaches to emotional experiences, but some are more helpful in nurturing emotional development than others. It always helps to stay informed of your child’s emotional needs, and how to deal with them.

For many parents childcare has to be balanced between a lot of other activities and commitments. There is no doubt that for all children the first few years are vitally important to form a basis for good education, good health, emotional strength, morality, self discipline and social integration. There is also no doubt that all parents hold their children dearest amongst all relationships. But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded that parents have to prioritize and make an extra effort to be tolerant, sincerely affectionate and genuinely concerned in the way they bring up their children.

Types of Parenting

Psychologist John Gottman has identified some parenting styles in his research on families and the emotional climate of the home. While we all react differently at different times, you might see yourself more in one style than another.

The Dismissing Parent
Parenting styles are deeply influenced by the attitudes parents have about their own emotions. Emotion-dismissing parents often view their own emotions as voluntary, as something they choose to feel. These parents then view their child's emotions in the same light. When a child experiences a negative emotion, the solution seems simple: the child should simply decide to have a more positive emotion. In addition, emotion-dismissing adults tend to think of negative emotions as toxic, as if these feelings should be avoided. If a child experiences a negative emotion, they will do anything to move the child out of the negative emotional state, including distraction, tickling, eating, and so on.

Such parents are not insensitive to their children’s emotions. They see them happening and want to be helpful and protective, but they are not sure what to do. Because they are uncomfortable with their own emotions, they remain uncomfortable with their child's feelings. For them, dismissing the emotion, minimizing it by saying “it’s not that bad” or distracting the child with something new, may seem like the best option. The efforts of dismissing the child's emotional experiences may also result in dismissing the child. In addition, since children often model adult behavior and attitudes if the adult regards emotions as something to be moved out of the way, the child will likely follow suit.

The Disapproving Parent
Children have powerful emotional lives from a very early age and emotions are not simply a mode of thinking that can be switched on or off at will. This is because brains are ‘wired’ to experience emotions. Some of our emotional thinking even goes on unconsciously, influencing how we feel about people or leading us to make certain choices. All parents and caregivers have different attitudes about their emotions - especially their negative emotions like anger, fear, sadness, disgust, or contempt. Some adults may believe that expressing emotions is a sign of weakness or reveal bad character and are unproductive. These attitudes about emotions in general will influence how they treat their child's emotions. Disapproving parents tend to disregard or suppress their own emotions, and because of this they treat their children's feelings negatively.

The Permissive Parents
Those parents who have a carefree and an ‘anything goes’ attitude about emotion accept emotions as natural and normal. Rather than ignoring their child's feelings, or dismissing them, these parents view emotions as a normal part of life. They see emotion as a process that needs to run its natural course without much outside interference. These parents value being involved in their children's lives. They accept, love, and respect their children, and they encourage and honor their children’s emotional expressions. They know children flourish in an atmosphere of unconditional love. But they also fear that setting limits on a child's behavior might send the wrong message. However this style falls short of nurturing healthy emotional development because sometimes letting things run their course does not always produce the best results. Research suggests it's not enough to accept and value your child's emotions. In addition to being allowed to freely experience their emotions, children need to be encouraged to understand them as well. And this is precisely where this parenting style falls short. Children tend to lack the ability to calm down when they're angry, sad, or upset and find it more difficult to concentrate or learn new skills, social and educational.

TIP:
Emotions - including negative emotions - are healthy and natural, not problems to be fixed or avoided. As an adult the parenting style that best nurtures a child’s emotional development, begins with one word…empathy, i.e. understanding your child’s emotions. Help your child label her/his feelings, both negative and positive, and solve problems and guide the child and set limits on behavior.

Accepting, valuing, sharing and exploring emotions is not always easy. It is not automatic, like breathing or growing fingernails. We’re not necessarily born with the ability to do it. Instead, it might require effort and practice—but like any new skill, it can be learned.

Always remember to provide ample opportunities for your child to develop various skills and talents. By doing this you not only recognize the child as a competent person but also as somebody who knows how to achieve what s/he desires and yearns for. It also helps to remember that children need a sense of belonging to feel safe and secure. As parents one of the best gifts we can give to our children is the emotional and inner strength which are needed to cope with different situations of life. SOURCE: Gottman, John “Four Basic Parenting Styles.” 2005. (14 September, 2005)