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Child development activities are vital for stimulating both physical and mental growth among other areas of growth. A well-tailored development program during the early stages can help mold the child into an individual with a well-balanced growth in all fields.

Although parents and guardians may find themselves being preoccupied with the career, it is recommended and highly advised that they avoid neglecting this vital stage of development.

Today, there are a myriad of activities that are simple and cost-effective to assist a child grow into a positive mental health in line with their physical growth. Although an expert psychologist/counselor can provide the best treatment and therapies, there are many simple yet effective activities that are often overlooked.

Physical growth development activities can very well include climbing, running, swinging, jogging and other wholesome family fun-filled activities. In all reality, all children require a lot of work in order to help stimulate growth of muscles. Child development activities are vital for stimulating both physical and mental growth. A well-tailored development program during the early stages can help mold the child into an individual with a well-balanced growth in all fields.

Next, there are also development activities which place strong emphasis on the writing muscles of the hand. They are known as fine motor control development. Activities can include (but not limited to) painting, coloring, writing and so on. Activities are often fun yet simple to execute. There have been suggestions that activities such as doing puzzles, playing with small toys such as action figures and small cars are also excellent for the development of fine motor control.

Activities that are intended to help develop mental growth are generally those that are focused upon reading activities. Having mentioned this, they can be extensive – everything from reading aloud to a child to pointing out the labels on foods or reading the instructions on a game and so on.

Other than the above, children will also need to be developed emotionally and socially. This is intended to help them learn to communicate with others, build upon their imaginations and vocabulary. Activities can include playing “let’s pretend”, hide-and-seek and playing house to name but a few. Children who are involved in dramas and acting will learn a great deal about sharing, caring, compromising and socializing.

Child development activities need to be integrated and executed as often as possibly able to be able to have the best results. They also need to be varied but balanced in order to have a well-rounded growth. Repeating these activities will help the child improve on a shorter time.

A most important factor when deciding on the right development activities for your child would be its feasibility. Ensure that they are suitable for the child’s age. Choosing the wrong activities for their age can either cause the child to be bored, easily frustrated or simply lose interest quickly.

As illustrated above, the activities targeted at child development are varied and will depend on the area of growth along with the age of the child. It’s importance and significance is obvious and cannot be denied or pushed aside.

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A child development theorist is a professional who attempts to explain and interpret a child’s behavior. A developmental theorist tries to make sense of facts that are accumulated about children through various forms of research, and organize this knowledge in a systematic way.

Developmental theories are used to explain past events and predict future events, and help us speculate about the probable behavior of a child who is in a certain circumstance.

A development theorist may follow one of the four general categories of theories of child development. Environmental theories try and explain behavior based on a child’s learning, their past behavior and their external environment. Epigenetic theories focus on the interactions between a child’s outside environment and their inherited characteristics. Both learning theories and cognitive theories emphasize the development of a child’s ability to learn or think.

Each child development theorist who follows their own theory of development provides a different set of explanations for behavior, so there is not a single theory that is best or most useful. It is generally most productive to examine child development from both the environmental and epigenetic perspectives.

Gesell was a development theorist who developed a sequence of behavior, in which he concluded that a child’s maturation and change in behavior was cause by the development of their nervous system. Gsell felt that in order for a child to learn something new they had to be biologically ready to learn it, and that practice or training had little effect if a child was not ready to learn a particular skill.

Piaget was a child development theorist who described a series of orderly changes that take place in the way children think and solve problems. Piaget felt that children develop ways to think and solve problems as they mature, because their brains become better able to process and retain information.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is organized into four stages. The sensorimotor stage covers infancy. The preoperational stage focuses on children 2 to 7 years old. Concrete operations focus on children 7 to 11 years old, and Formal Operations focuses on the cognitive abilities of adolescents.

Sigmund Freud was an environmental child development theorist who concentrated on early childhood conflict. Freud was one of the first to suspect that many emotional problems lay in the mind and not in the body. He emphasized how our unconscious motives influenced our behavior. Through psychoanalysis Freud attempted to identify a person’s unconscious desires so that they could resolve conflicts from bad childhood experiences.

John B. Watson was a child development theorist who developed a Learning Theory of child growth and development. This theory states that behavior is not inborn but is learned.

A development theorist of a child who specializes in a social learning theory believes that children learn new responses by watching and imitating others, especially if they are rewarded.

Although the beliefs of various child development theorists differ, there are many aspects of each theory that can help explain a child’s behavior and can add to our knowledge child development.

Mary Boakyewaa is publisher and co-owner of www.child-development-guide.com — a website for the development of children from birth to teens offering helpful tips and advice for parents, early year’s professionals, and students.