Parenting in early childhood presents a complex theme that largely depends on parents’ perceptions and previous experiences. One of the most common techniques for measuring the child’s development featured in the course readings is developmental milestones. The framework is based on Jean Piaget’s theory of four stages of intellectual development introduced in 1936 (Veraksa & Pramling Samuelsson, 2022). While the theory was introduced almost a hundred years ago, it is still widely used in modern parenting. However, while Piaget’s theory mainly focused on outlining the different stages of a child’s development, modern developmental milestone guides include clear and defined explanations of what children can do by a certain age. For example, the developmental milestones guide from Child Welfare Information Gateway (2022) determines four areas of development for children from 2 months to 5 years: social/emotional, language/communication, cognitive, and movement/physical milestones. Thus, comparing the current practices with course readings explained that theories had been refined to make parenting easier for modern parents.
Furthermore, Vygotsky’s social-cultural cognitive theory explains how the development of children in late childhood depends on their social environment, while Kohlberg’s theory explains the connection of morality development with children’s actions. While modern parenting practices and thoughts do not specify precisely how to interact with children through the ages of 6-11, they suggest that parents can develop knowledge about children’s development process. Acquiring knowledge about child development is encouraged for first-time parents to promote a higher quality of interactions between parents and children and support their use of more effective parenting strategies (Bartlett et al., 2018). Thus, modern parenting practices encourage parents’ knowledge and understanding of development theories for easier parenting processes and support the application of knowledge to achieve better parenting outcomes for children.
References
Bartlett, J. D., Guzman, L., & Ramos-Olazagasti, M. A. (2018). Parenting knowledge among first-time parents of young children. Child Trends. Web.
Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2022) Parenting infants and young children. Web.
Veraksa, N., & Pramling Samuelsson, I. (2022). Early childhood research and education: An inter theoretical focus (Vol. 4). Springer.