Toddler Development Tracker

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Dr. Darren Adamson from Argosy University in Salt Lake City. Today I want to talk with you about how to track the development of your toddler. A variety of ways you can do that, first let's start with what you're going to track. You want to track their physical developments, so are they growing height wise, weight wise. What about their ability to use their fingers in fine motor skill development. Those kinds of things are the things you want to track. Language development is another important area that you would want to track. And their social skills, when do they first interact with another person, when do they smile? When do they have their first conflict with another child, in terms of say, a toy that both of them want? Those are the kinds of things you want to track. Best way to do that, these days in the twenty first century, is Google it. Just simply enter into a Google search that says, Toddler Development Tracker and there'll be I'm sure, many, many types of trackers that'll come up in that search. And use those, write down the things that you observe in your child. Because it's very interesting, when they get to be a little bit older, they're curious about that. So when did I first start to walk? When did I say my first word, when did I say, mama or dada? They want to know that and so the tracking of their development is really fun and interesting for both you as a parent, as well as for the toddler, as they grow older. There are some old fashioned things you can do as well, that are kind of fun for tracking a toddler's development. You can simply take pictures, take a picture of them every single week or every single month, and in the same spot in your house, doing the same exact things. So you can actually see their growth. Another of course, would be to film them. I remember as a child, watching the videos that my parents took in an old eight millimeter film or an eight millimeter camera that they had. And it was very fun as an older child to look back on those and see that I changed. From the age of about two to the age of four, during my toddlerhood. Another thing that you can do is, simply have a height measure on your wall. Mark it, have the child stand up next to the wall and mark their height and maybe even write down, what that height is, by using a yard stick. And then, six months later even, maybe even two months later, you can have them stand up at the same place against the wall. And mark it again and put the date and the height, each time that you do that. We did that with our children, and it was really, really fun over the years to watch them. In fact, we did it until they were about 18 years old. And to see the growth over that period of time, was really, really interesting, and was really fun to share that with the family. So track the toddler's development, so that they can understand, so that they can enjoy it later. Track it in terms of, something written, track it in terms of either a film or at least, still pictures. And you'll really enjoy that later, as they grow."