Learning the Four Key Elements of Child Development article by Les Minkus
… Many parents focus on the physical and cognitive aspects of their child’s development. Unfortunately,
parents juggling hundreds of responsibilities often overlook emotional and social development. These are
vitally important to a child’s growth.
Cognitive Development
Traditionally, this area is one of the two primary focuses of childhood development. This is not hard
to understand, as the benefits of healthy cognitive development reach into so many aspects of adult life.
This area of development includes creativity, discovery, symbolic thought, problem-solving skills,
and reasoning. Cognitive development also involves the ability to focus and control behaviour.
Language skills fall into this category as well.
Cognitive development can manifest in several ways...
- Learning from experience and exposure
- Improvement in educational or academic process
- Inquisitiveness/observation skills
- Growing base of knowledge.
Emotional Development
While emotional development can be difficult to measure, it provides the foundation for mental health and
well-being. This includes feelings of happiness, feelings of power over the environment, emotional awareness,
emotional strength and stability. Emotional development also includes spontaneity, humour, feeling about self
and sensitivity to others.
Emotional development can be observed in several areas such as...
- Self esteem/confidence/self motivation
- Positive attitude
- Temperament control
- Independence.
Social Development
As children learn to play in larger and larger groups, they begin to learn about appropriate behaviours within
certain contexts. Learning to interact with peers and authority figures is critical to successful development
as well as enabling children to function well in society.
Social development leads to growth in different areas, both in and out of the home...
- Developing interaction with peers & other people
- Expanding interactive environment
- Family unity, awareness and bonding
- Communication/language enhanced.
Physical Development
Physical development is by far the easiest area of development to measure and track. It includes many aspects of
health and well-being. Hand-eye coordination, sensory development, control of physical actions, motor skills,
dietary habits, and hygiene all figure into healthy physical development.
You will notice physical development by various behaviours...
- Improved hand/eye coordination
- Controlled physical actions
- Large and small motor skills
- Dietary and physical habits.
Cognitive, emotional, physical and social form the crucial aspects of children’s development. Armed with this knowledge,
parents can focus their efforts on balanced growth for their child. Since all four facets of development are heavily
influenced by a child’s play experiences, structuring playtime for learning plays a vital role in successful development.
