Healthy Child Development

Child development isn’t easy, even at the best of times. Teaching a tiny new person about how the world works and how to make good choices no matter the situation is difficult and it can take a toll on the parents. Small mistakes will be made and no parent or child is perfect, after all. That’s why it’s important to distill a sense of patience within yourself and do your best to treat your child or children with fairness and dignity, no matter the situation. Children are all going to be different, after all, and respond to different pressures in their own unique way. Sometimes when this happens, the child will turn to a youthful version of self medication, whether it be through tantrums, acting out or other methods. Every child will learn a different way to try and vent their stress and its up to the parents to figure out what behavior their child is developing and whether that behavior is overall healthy for them. For example, a child might be having a hard time at school so she hides in her room when at home. This is natural but it’s not healthy for a child to stay in their room for extended periods of time so her parents might want to talk to her about that. Maybe she feels safest there and is afraid of everyone outside scolding or judging her. As parents, it is best to talk to her about this and see if there’s anything you can do to ease sense of fear and frustration. It might be a difficult at first but over time you’ll be glad you did. Let’s take a look at some of these behaviors, where they come from and some of the things you can do to gently correct them while still giving your child a sense of autonomy.
Thumb Sucking and Thumb Sucking Remedies
The psychology of thumb sucking has always been a bit of a mystery, with some researchers thinking one thing and others thinking another. Often it affords the child a sense of safety and security where she wouldn’t have one otherwise. Thumb sucking can be a reaction to stress, fear or growing changes within your child you might not be aware of. To handle this in a healthy fashion, there are several things you can do or try that might help your child learn better ways to cope with stress. First you can buy a controlling device like a tguard aerothumb. A tguard aerothumb is a good way to prevent your child from sucking his thumb as other types of thumb sucking gloves or devices that physically restrain the action. Even a simple plastic thumb guard, while not quite as advanced as a tguard aerothumb, can be effective in tamping down this habit. If you can, sit your child down and explain that it is both unsanitary and impolite to suck their thumb at home or in public. With enough patience, they will come to understand.
Tantrums
Unfortunately, the tguard aerothumb isn’t equipped to deal with tantrums. Only thumb sucking. Tantrums are a bit of a different animal than a simple physical behavior as they can have several underlying causes, some of which can be very difficult to figure out. They can come from reaction to fear or stress as with thumb sucking. But while a device like the tguard aerothumb can fix thumb sucking pretty quickly, there exists no device that can get to the mental bottom of why a child is throwing tantrums. The first thing you should if you think your child might be having problems with tantrums is sit them down and see if you can figure out what is wrong. Sometimes it is glaringly obvious and the solution might present itself right away. Other times, it isn’t quite as clear and you’ll need to talk to them several times to figure exactly what is wrong. External problems, like being bullied at school, are difficult and your child might be reluctant to admit that they’re happening. But with enough talk, enough love and enough time to listen, you and your child will figure out what’s wrong and what the solution could be.