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Finland has quite an intensive checkup process, with it pretty much starting from pregnancy and continuing on for years. Just after birth, they send a children's nurse to the home to see how the baby and parents are coping and check home conditions, and that nurse will pretty much be the child's nurse for the next few years.

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Tomorrow morning, Smallsteps will have her 4-year checkup, which looks at motor-skills and makes sure she is developing "normally", whatever that means these days. I don't know what happens if she fails things, but I have heard many stories of parents prepping their kids to pass the tests, as if passing the tests is the point.

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I am not sure how many of the people who do this testing daily are fooled, but if they are, parents could be covering up developmental issues in their children. It is probably better to know earlier than to find out later. They will pay extra attention to language as she is a dual mother-tongue child and this seems to be treated as an indication of potential learning issues. I think that it is very misinformed, but I can see that if parents don't do a good job of separating languages, it could cause some problems early on. In some ways it is like homeschooling, it is great for kids if the parents know what they are doing and are conscientious about doing it. I sometimes feel people make decisions on trends, not whether they can actually pull it off or not.

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We also had to get an assessment form filled by the daycare, with their evaluation of her abilities. There were no problems there except I disagreed with one point, they wrote that she can put together a 20-piece jigsaw puzzle, which is true, but she is also quite happy doing 100 piece puzzles at home, as she loves them.

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I think there are two main ways a parent can go wrong in raising a child - not paying enough attention and, paying too much attention to their child's development. While I often talk about the former, the latter is potentially just as damaging, although it might take longer to become apparent, as the kids can be high achievers, but not necessarily be happy doing what they do.

I am not concerned with her passing these tests at all, as I am pretty sure that she is fine in pretty much anything they would ever throw at a four year old, especially on the mental side of things - which she must get from her mother's side. I think we have done a pretty good job of finding the time and energy to spend with Smallsteps and the space and resources for her to be independent. The trouble for us as parents, is that she has a very strong internal locus of control and is just as stubborn - which I would like to say is all on her mother's side as well - but it is very much a fifty-fifty spread. I think it will serve her well later in life with anything she turns her attention to.

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It is easy for a parent to make "predictions" as to what their child could be when they grow up, but I have absolutely no idea. Firstly, I don't know what kinds of opportunities there will be in 20 years from now, nor do I know what kind of world she is going to have to face. What I am confident about is that if she remains on a similar trajectory, whatever she will meet whatever she does face head on. I think as parents raising children in so much uncertainty of opportunity, the best we can do is prepare them to be able to learn as they need and more importantly cope mentally in adversity. Even now, I see more and more people fail at the latter and I do not think the bottom is in on the downward trend yet.

Because I will take Smallsteps there myself, as my wife has a cough and isn't allowed to join - my biggest worry is that they will grade her based on her father's abilities to fill the forms and talk with them. If I am part of the assessment - she is in trouble.

Taraz
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That smallsteps is just about the cutest thing I know. Thanks for some updated photographs.

I think the biggest mistake I see parents make is not letting children 'do it themselves'. They want to teach them exactly right from the get go. I think it's good to let them figure things out themselves as much as possible. Floppy shoelaces soon become an impediment and the kid will at least tuck them in :)

I had an evaluation between 3 and 4 because my parents wanted to adopt another child and we all had to be tested. They got to watch mine through a one way mirror arrangement. I was answering questions just fine til the woman asked me what my shoes were made of. I said 'I don't know'. She tried to encourage me to think of it so I took off a shoe and asked her what it was made of. I passed apparently (the case worker helped my folks adopt 4 children. She became a long time friend of the family.)

She came to visit at the farm house to be sure everything was OK. She and mom were chatting and I got bored and wandered outside. Half an hour later they realized I wasn't right there and came looking. I was curled up in the dog house with the collie. Naked. Mom asked me why I didn't have clothes on and I told her Prince never wore clothes in his house. The case worker reminded me of that for years!

I'm sure smallsteps will be fine. No doubt in my mind.

I think the biggest mistake I see parents make is not letting children 'do it themselves'. They want to teach them exactly right from the get go.

This is a big mistake. Let 'em fail small and often :)

She tried to encourage me to think of it so I took off a shoe and asked her what it was made of.

I think one of the issues with not letting kids fail is that they don't learn how to problem solve. I think one of the things that kids are unable to do today is to use what they have around them to do what they need to do. I think it is because people have purpose-built tools for everything. The basic "knife as a screwdriver" mentality has been lost.

I was curled up in the dog house with the collie. Naked.

This is something I do worry about with Smallsteps as she is naked most of the time at home - like a wildling.

Clothes are over rated except for temperature regulation.

The case worker thought that was one of the most logical things she'd ever heard :)

Kids often make more sense than the adults around them :)

@bigtom13...i hahahaed for a moment there
As children we often do weird things.
Sometimes they're okay relating to homeostasis we do not know.
Sometimes out of curiosity

It's okay to try out things as a child though.
It's the right time because when we are older it because abnormal for an adult to make mistakes

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I remember when our son was a child. Due to work, we took him to kindergarten very early, when he was 4 months only. It was tough for us to live thim there so early but he developed as any other of his friends, later on, even those who just joined school when they were 4 or 5 years old.
Those days, we were very concerned as he was learning new things and developing, he is not taking his nap while others do, he is not walking yet, he is not starting to talk.... you know what I mean.
We used to go to the checks every month initially and then every 6 months and finally yearly. My wife had a very busy job back then and many times I had to take him to the checks myself alone. I remember one of the visits to the doctor, it was a very nice lady and when I showed her my fears about him growing slowly on this or that skill, she told me. Listen, at 5 years of age, they all walk, later, they all talk. Every kid is different but at the end of the day, they all become adults, so just relax and enjoy his growing.
If he eats and is happy, everythibng will be fine.
That was a great lesson.

Friends of ours here were told their children were not developing fast enough, that the heads were too small according to the average - they didn't factor in the father was filipino and the averages they used were Finnish.

Children learn skills at different time and the doctor is right - they all grow up pretty average :) I think in general, we as parents can't do too much damage if we pay some attention and give a lot of love.

I haven't been concerned with Smallsteps' development other than her actual health issues that we have tracked and dealt with since her birth. I hope that she grows out of them all, but if she doesn't, she will have to learn to cope regardless.

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Prepping a kid to pass a developmental check sounds stupid -_-

And what you're saying is making me wonder if they're still clinging to embarrassingly archaic information about speech/learning development in multilingual children.

And what you're saying is making me wonder if they're still clinging to embarrassingly archaic information about speech/learning development in multilingual children.

Yes they are. People are constantly surprised by bilingual children I know because they hold this idea they are slow learners.

They might develop speech slower because they have at least twice as much to process, that’s pretty much it 🙄

I’m not bitter about having missed the chance to be multilingual fluent thanks to severely outdated information, not in the slightest

From my limited observation - Smallsteps and a few friends with bi/multilingual kids, they learn faster. I do think parental attention plays a large role here, as the children need to be actively exposed to language and it requires effort by the parents. Not every parent is interested, but will raise bilingual out of necessity.

For example, we couldn't raise Smallsteps with Finnish only because of me - but if I didn't pay attention to the way we speak English together, it could be that she would not have the range she needs to build upon, or it would mix in with her Finnish. She hasn't mixed the languages (unless she doesn't know a specific word) pretty much at all, but we made a very clear distinction between what Mummy says and Daddy says. Some parents think children will just know this and they will of course learn it in time, but it might be after those foundational years.

Think when I was little (not sure, would have to double check, but do remember hearing about this from someone), there were observations that kids from multilingual backgrounds talked later on average than kids from monolingual backgrounds (I don't think any other learning areas were affected, just literally they took longer to start talking) so the educated professional opinion was that too many languages caused an unacceptable delay in speech development and the advice was to pick one language and run with it and do other languages "later".

So my parents only spoke English to us (and Malay to each other when they didn't want us to know what was going on), and basically we never got around to learning the other languages until recently. Familiarity with the sounds from growing up and knowing a number of words makes it easier but it would have been infinitely easier if we'd just learned from birth XD

Distinctions as in pronunciation?

hey man i am in lot of stress riht now so can you help me ?
i got blacklister on buil a whale and got down vote on this post https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@attajuttjj/what-is-a-brave-browser-and-is-using-it-worth-it
so my bro can you tell me what i should do

No idea - you can try asking @themarkymark why you got blacklisted. Spam/plagiarism?

I have no idea there was no comment what so ever

You can try contacting him - perhaps leave a message on your post tagging him or find him on discord perhaps.

thank I will try

I'd absolutely coach for the test. You never know when a change of policy means children 'failing to thrive' in their home environment are subject to extra assessment, enforcement and potentially even removal from the home. The state isn't a service provider and that social worker is not your friend.

Firstly, i must say you've a pretty daughter.

Raising a child is not easy whenever I think of it.
You do not want them going astray and you hope when they are grown they make the right choices.
In my view of it, I don't think school assessment should not be the overall basis to assess a child's growth.
Some are fast with learning,
While some others are slow but eventually we all grow and that's how life is too
Most kids who stutter at their infant ages sometimes grow to become greatest speakers and orators of all time.
I think what should receive more attention is teaching a child how to
Communicate effectively
Building lasting relationship
The importance of communities so that we can grow

I once read about a young man who had it all in life, easy going and successful all the time.
He wasn't trained to handle failures of life and on the first depressing moment he had he committed suicide.
So I feel as we develop school related skills, social skills should be involved too.

I think the most important aspect of attention comes down to what are you paying attention to? Knowing on what to focus is the key. Overall attention is good, but focusing is better. I guess parenting is the most difficult job in the world as it requires to be salient in so many areas, from emotional, to psychological, tech and so on.