Ages and Stages: What should my child be doing at what age?
What do the developmental stages look like?
By the end of age of 5 (school age), your child should have all Gross motor skills achieved (walking, sitting up, crawling, rolling over & jumping) as well as refinement of fine motor skills (feeding self and drinking from a cup, grasping, some writing (most letters and numbers, counting and sentence structure) and climbing)), and ability to use the bathroom independently. There are additional skills and milestones that are also important to understand for this age, as these become the foundation for later social, emotional, and physical development. Your child’s interests are becoming more noticeable; identifying friends, gender, what is “nice” and what is “mean.” They are able to understand and follow basic rules and are able to agree or disagree with a statement, showing some cooperation and some occurrences of demands. They are able to tell short stories about their day and have some recall. They are also able to identify sensations and what is pleasurable to them (favorite colors, textures, and foods).
By age 12 your child is seeking more independence, asking questions about the world, and discovering more social groups. Those social groups and outside involvements become more important (i.e. interest in outings with friends, academic clubs, sports). Their academic and learning capabilities are honing, strength subjects become more prominent, as well as their hobbies and preferences.
By age 18 your child’s independence and ideals about the future are growing. Ideas about career, further education, relationships, families, housing, and more are coming forth. At this point, your child’s social relationships are most important to them; sexual relationships and orientation may have already been formed and identified. Adolescence [into young adulthood] is a major stage of development in where your child should be learning the roles he or she occupy as an adult. It is during this stage that the adolescent will re-examine their identity, and question what they want out of life, and what they need to do to get what they want. According to Erik Erikson, renound Developmental Psychologist, this stage of “transition from childhood to adulthood is most important.”
What if this is not what my child’s skills look like?
Milestone development is like a pyramid: Each stage builds off the other. When these milestones are not met or are met at a slower or later rate (as typical in cases of Sensory, Neurological or Developmental Disorders) there can be several ramifications in the other stages. Adolescence into adulthood for example, is a time of transition to independence and self-sufficiency. This time period can be challenging enough. Adding more stress due to present delays of previous stages, or other concerns, can make this transition nearly impossible. There are many factors which negatively impact life skill development and the ability to function independently. It’s important to know these factors, so that proper training and treatment can be implemented as early and as regularly as possible. The brain is mendable, which means it can be trained and rebuilt. SET provides individualized exercises and care instructions to assist the brain with meeting mile-stone transitions.