What Every Parent Ought to Know About Milestones
Milestones don't matter.
Parents spend a lot of time telling their kid's things like "you're special" and "I love you just the way you are." So why is it that during the early stages of life, parents put their child in a box? During the first month they must be able to coo. During the second month, the child needs to smile, laugh, and hold their head steady... and so on and so forth.
Milestones do help parents make sure there child doesn't have a disability, which is a good thing, but be wary of putting too much stock in your child reaching goals at a certain time. If you're not careful, the dark side of milestones may rear it's ugly head.
Don't Enable Sibling Rivalry
When you start comparing milestones between siblings, it can only lead to bad things. Each child will progress at a different rate, and if the older child hears you saying things like "oooh, big girl, you learned ______ way before your sister," all it does is break down the older child.
My Kid is Better than Your Kid
It goes without saying that my kids are better than yours. My dad can also beat up your dad, and your momma's so fat she needs a boomerang to put her belt on. That said, whenever comparing your situation to someone else's, remember that more than likely someone else's child will be "better" than your kid at something. Someone's dad will be able to beat up your dad, and your momma is probably fatter than someone else's momma. We're here on this earth to help each other, building on each other's experiences, not to make sure our kid is "better" than everyone else.
Sit Back and Relax
Kick your feet up, relax, and enjoy the good times... after all, once your child reaches a milestone, there's no going back.
Be sure to check out all the dads at dad-blogs.com for another edition of fatherhood friday!
photo courtesy of myf
I have to take issue with the fact that your dad can beat mine up - he is a black belt, former marine, pro-boxer and now top secret spy. He is already pissed about all of the trans-atlantic trash talk about health care systems - and does not need anymore encouragement to introduce your father first hand to yours.
Apologies. I still live in the playground.
Nice post - we have been a lot more relaxed about the milestones second time round. First time we had a week by week book that set minimum, average, and advanced milestones - puke! It used to get me so stressed!
Mark
I don't think this post would have been possible without us having a second kid. You just realize that sometimes you have to chill out!
Great insight. Great advice. Thanks.
Tom, thanks for stopping by! I'm glad you liked it.
This is so true. I see it with my friends and even with my mom now that she has a second grandchild. She will say to me that my nephew can do X already. And, I'm like, so what, good for high. When he's solving quadratic equations and my kid (who is 15 months older) can't spell cat, then talk to me. And it drives me nuts when my friends ask me if my son can do X yet. Great, so your kid walked four miliseconds before mine did. Go ahead and put that tuition deposit down on Harvard, no, wait, I forgot, for that they give full rides. Simmer down people.
Amen to that! I'm all for being competitive, believe you me, but sometimes it just doesn't matter if kid x is ahead of kid y... especially when they're still very young.
That is such good advice and something we've had to wrestle with for the entire eight years that we've been a "two-kid family". Once you learn the trick of not comparing--I'm not saying we have because we still struggle with it--it's easier to just sit back and enjoy the ride.
We struggle with it too, but I hope in writing about it, it'll be more in the forefront of my mind so that history doesn't repeat itself (too much).
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