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REACH A READER: Milestones and modern parenting

There has been an uptick in more Kindergarteners entering school without the readiness skills they have traditionally needed
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Learning begins at a very early age.

Hearing your child speak their first words, “dada” or “dog”, or the toddler favourite, “No!”, is one of the early thrills along the parenthood journey. Some children show an early interest in letters, pointing to them wanting their adult to explain the meaning behind the lines and swoops they see all around them. Others won’t sit still to listen to a story until they enter school as they’re busy exploring their worlds with all four limbs.

Most parents will have heard the term “developmental milestones,” but what does that really mean? And don’t kids develop on their own terms anyway? Well, yes and no. Development speaks to the rapid process of growing up from an infant to a kid to a teenager. And milestones are those age ranges where most kids typically can do a specific skill like walk, talk, and read. Some kids will get there earlier and some kids will get there later. But when should a parent (or a grandparent) be concerned? Judging by what we’re hearing from educators and paediatricians around the world, the answer is now.

There has been an uptick in more Kindergarteners entering school without the readiness skills they have traditionally needed such as potty-training, using zippers, or even having the emotional stamina to be away from home for six hours a day. While little ones have always had tearful days being separated from mom or dad as they make that big transition to school, teachers are reporting now that they are crying more for their screens than their parents.

And what about the older kids in elementary school? More children today in Canada have a less developed vocabulary and are reading at lower grade levels than kids the same age when their parents were in school.

So what can a concerned adult do to help the kids in their lives? Read to them. Read around them. Buy them books. Play board games. Take a walk outside. Unplug. This isn’t easy in our modern world and kids are going to resist. Technology has countless benefits that make our lives easier but parenting just isn’t one of them.