Some say that play is the work of children.

I agree. Sort of….

The developmental tasks accomplished through playing are what truly matter.

Equally important: What kind of co-worker are you Mommy? The hovering, scampering, secretarial type?  The strict foreman who keeps the trains running on time?  Or are you more of an over-qualified, underpaid, personal assistant to a diva?

Here’s what your kid is working on, and how you can really help:

Birth to First Birthday:

Your super-curious baby spends a lot of her time figuring out her place in the world.

In the first few months of her life, she experiments with causes and effects — everything from what happens when she smiles or cries, to what happens when she kicks her foot at the new crib mobile. In the second half of her first year, she becomes able to direct her curiosity and see it through to a result.  Like that toy you think you hid, or the cup you think you put a lid on…. remember Mommy, it’s her job to discover. It’s your job to control her environment to make sure she learns that life is interesting, comforting, and safe. Besides, within months, she will love imitating you so much that she’ll even help clean up her own splashes. Discipline? Save it for next year.

First Birthday to 2 years old:

Your super-independent baby thinks she’s got it all figured out, doesn’t she?

She walks now (just like you).  She talks now (just like you, she thinks). What does she need you for?  Diaper changes, but she won’t always admit that. At this age, your toddler discovers multiple ways to reach her goals. If she wants her blankie from the laundry pile, she might pull down the whole pile to get it closer to her, or she might climb the furniture to get herself closer to it.  Either way, she’s convinced she doesn’t need your help — except for when she does, right?  It’s your job to be patient for now, and avoid power struggles. Discipline should be about setting and keeping boundaries, not punishment.

2 years old to 3 & 4 years old:

Your super-social kid spends a lot of time figuring out everyone else’s business — even if she has to make some of it up.

At first, your child starts with simple imitation of actions she has seen. By ages 3 and 4, she and her friends will use sociodramatic play (or make-believe) to try on different personalities, and try out different situations. The simple body-oriented play of the first 24 months is expanded to symbolic play, which means that kids this age can hold something in their minds although the object isn’t really there.  You know — they pretend. Mommy’s job: to be a good stage mother.

The baby-biz lingo, “toilet learning,” conjures images of skipped classes, Fonzie jackets and smokin’ in the boys’ room.

For toddlers and the bathrooms that await them, the key word is “readiness.”  Most children are not ready to learn this complex process until about halfway between their second and third birthdays.

There are plenty of parents who insist (hope?) otherwise. And sure, some tots will offload cargo if you help them pull up to the dock at just the right moment. But that doesn’t mean the kids are “trained” — it means their parents are.

Developmental milestones for learning to use the bathroom.

Children will reliably, independently, and hygienically use the room with a potty when they are ready in every developmental domain. The following questions will help you decide when to teach your child about using the bathroom.

Emotional development – Whose idea is this?

Starting at around 12-14 months of age, your child is in the throes of the normal stage of negativism. His strong feelings of independence and his love of saying “no” might embroil you in more power struggles than potty trips if you pressure him.  When your child starts to dislike the feeling of being wet or soiled, you’ll have yourself a partnership.

Social development – Does your child care about potty training as much as you do?

After negativism passes, and your child becomes more cooperative, he will want to comply with more of your requests. He will have discovered that he wants to grow up, have different clothing, and leave babyhood behind. Your toddler will want to be more like the bigger people who are his role models. It is healthy and normal for him to observe that older family members use the bathroom.

Cognitive development – How many details can your toddler manage at once?

Using the bathroom is quite a process. It involves recognizing the need, responding in a timely manner, asking for help at first, disrobing, and then relaxing one’s body while balancing on a chair with a hole in it. Let him practice as much as he wants to. Let him practice with clothes on, with clothes off.  Let him sit there and settle in while thumbing through a book. These activities will help him get more familiar with the details of going to the bathroom.

Language development – Does your child have the expressive language skills to ask for the help he needs?

It’s a good development when your child increasingly wants to stop wetting and soiling a diaper to that he can be clean and dry. It’s an even more promising development when he tells you so. Be sure to teach him the words that are acceptable to your family (and/or his caregivers) for these body functions. Alerting you to the fact that he is having a bowel movement is one of the first steps of taking responsibility for body functions. He’ll soon be ready for more complex responsibilities.

Motor development – Is your child’s body ready to “hold it” until he can get to the bathroom?

The sphincter muscles that allow for bladder and bowel control have some of the last nerves in the body to finish developing. Even if your child understands the process of going to the bathroom, is highly motivated to go, and desperately wants big boy underwear, if he cannot control his muscles yet, he will not have consistent success.  What he needs instead is non-shaming help in cleaning himself, along with encouragement for trying again next time.

Then he’ll follow you with his eyes.  Within a couple of months, he will smile.  At you.  On purpose. While he’s awake.

That is called the “social smile.”  And it’s a big deal when he decides to lay one on you.

The social smile is such a huge milestone because it brings together many other elements of your child’s development.

Cognitive Development and Body Awareness

Let’s review:  Your baby smiles at you, on purpose, while he’s wide awake — he clearly recognizes your visual representation (aka “face”).  He has been carefully observing your mouth and facial expressions, then pairing that information with the sounds of what you say.  The rhythms, too. A baby who smiles socially, or smiles back at you when you smile, knows how to take turns.

Emotional Development

Your prompt, consistent attention to his needs means that as the newborn develops into a settled baby, he can stress less about his problems, and enjoy life, his body, his family, his home a lot more. Your smiling tot with the good memory enjoys the experiences he associates with you, and knows that the love fest goes both ways.  His smile is the product of your investment in plenty of pleasurable face-to-face time.

Social Development

Your amazing baby instinctively knows what adults need to research in order to realize:  that a large part of our communication is non-verbal.   A baby capable of the social smile is a baby who has the maturity to ask for what he wants (more face time!), in a positive way.  He has outgrown his 100% reliance on the earlier strategies of cries and cues.

For babies, “smile” is a big word, and a big part of their growing language and social skills. The baby who learns to take turns will be able to make “conversation.”  The toddler who takes turns will be able to make friends.

But somebody has to regulate his food.  For the rest of his life.  And if not him, then who?

Like every other life skill discussed on this blog, your child will develop this self-care skill of healthy food intake in stages. There are simple ways to tell when he’s ready for more responsibility.

Watch the way he uses his hands.

Even before baby officially discovers their usefulness as toys, he will suck his hands to comfort himself.  I advise parents to help a young baby find his hands, especially if he will be able to self-comfort as a result.  By 2 months old, he’ll be very good at bringing his empty hands to his mouth while lying on his back. The next skill that will be useful for self-feeding is his ability (at around 3 months of age) to bring an object (that he’s already holding) to his mouth.

Read his lips.

Baby will use his tongue to push out and reject food that doesn’t please him, starting at 5 or 6 months. If you offer a cracker to your 6 or 7 month-old, he will consume it by making a munching action with his mouth.  At 9 months, he will bite at a cookie, but not bite all the way through.  At 12 months, he will be able to complete the biting of a soft cookie.  Because your baby will be able to (and will want to) try out a variety of softer foods, it is crucial that you only offer foods that are not choking hazards.

How does he respond to food tools?

Your infant will recognize bottle or breast at around 3 months old.  By 4-6 months old, he will pat the bottle or breast during mealtimes.  Between the ages of 4 to 7 months, or depending on when you and your pediatrician decide to offer solids, your baby will begin to open his mouth when you present a spoon.   A couple of months after that (9-ish months old), he’ll reach for the spoon. He might want to imitate what you do (not for nutritional purposes, but for the joy of stirring), or he might just bang the spoon on his plate.  His impulse to control food tools (and therefore, what goes into his body) is crucial.  Honor this emerging preference.  Don’t insist on controlling the spoon once he reaches this stage.

Bottoms up!

I’m referring to your child’s use of a cup, not his resistance to early toilet training pressure. At the age of 6 months (ish), your baby will drink from a cup, if you hold it.  A few months later, he will be ready to hold it for himself.  By his first birthday, he will want to attempt holding the cup, and you should let him.  Please expect some spilling.  If you can wipe off those slippery, just-had-lunch hands before he tries, you’ll see more success and less frustration.

Young children’s ambitions often exceed their skills.  If you let your child practice the small skills and the small choices, he will grow more smoothly into the big ones.  And remember — nobody wins a food fight with a baby.

1. Lotsa pink.
2. Lotsa sugar.
3. I love it, but it sure is lotsa work.
4. Why is it over so quickly?
5. Snow days make ME giddy, too.

Both of my children were born in February, and somewhere along the way, in a spasm of enthusiastic overreach, I encouraged them to consider February THEIR month (and the world their oyster, btw).  Selectively obedient girls that they are, they did.

For years, all 28 days of February have been a haze of hearts, descendants of the color red, calories, and paper products (invitations, Happy B-day cards, be-mine cards, thank-you notes).  My older one even indignantly questioned why a certain holiday in early February had been tainted by a mild disagreement.  It took a moment to realize she was talking about her birthday, not Valentine’s Day.

But this February has been exactly like the Procter & Gamble Salute to Moms.  Bittersweet.  See my blogroll for a link to this lovely ad that highlights the hopes and dreams and long-term parenting that Olympic athletes rely on.

Yes, I can see my kids swiftly closing in on the finish line to this marathon called “growing up”, but I also still see the little girls in the little leotards, learning one dance step at a time.  My teenager has been signed by an agent, but still needs me to drive her to her photo shoots.  Then hang around without looking like I’m hanging around — it’s an art.

My Princeton student has traveled to Carnegie Hall to accept a screenwriting award, but she still needs me to call the New Jersey cab driver I befriended to get a recommendation on an honest mechanic.  Befriending New Jersey cab drivers is an art, too.

The teenager skipped her 16th birthday party with friends, and asked for tickets to a play instead.  Always working on her stagecraft.  The college student?  With a lump in my throat, I called in an order for her 21st birthday cake.  Had it delivered.  She called to say “Whew!” for the plates and utensils I sent her way, too. Those things come in handy when you’re hosting your own birthday party for the first time.

Snow day you say?  Last night, as I drove a certain somebody home from acting class, cutting a path through Houston snowflakes who hadn’t yet changed their minds, Mini-Me fantasized out loud about classes being cancelled.  When we arrived home, I sat down at my computer to watch a video that my older one made of her most recent snow day.  In their minds, too, they’re still kids.

Top 5 ways that being a Mom is exactly like being a Time Traveler:

1.   We look ahead. We believe ahead. When our children are young, we fix our vision on the future.  The pitfalls AND prizes.  We concoct a secret home recipe of faith, hope, and       chutzpah, then use it as our fuel for our carpool, or for fighting fatigue, or riding out disappointments.

2.   And we look, feel, think backward. Like the archetypal Mom, the Champion Mom, at the end of the Procter & Gamble ad (blogroll, please), we sit in the stands, eyes on our child, our hearts on the finish line.  Our memories filled with the milestone markers we saw on the journey.

3.   Einstein’s Theory of Relativity asserts that if you travel far enough into space, in a fast-enough rocket …. when you return home to Earth, you will find that you have aged less than your sister.  YES. For those of you who don’t take Einstein at his word, those who need more proof:  This controversial theory of youthification is easily proved by hearing a new mom’s speak in her new language of monosyllables.

4.   Sometimes, time stands still.  Like the pulse-racing eternity that passes between the glimmer in baby’s eye that tells you he just realized he’s going to take the first step of his young life ……. and the second step of his young life.

5.   Timelessness.  No, I’m not talking about the fact that your toddler doesn’t believe in Daylight Savings Time, and now wakes up at 4:30 instead of 5:30 in the morning.  I’m referring to the fact that in motherhood, there is no expiration date on the silent vow to get it right, right the wrongs, to include what was left out of our own childhood journeys.

When children arrive, they bring us the precious, (dare I say golden?) opportunity to grow new psychological muscle.  We find the will to cheer them across finish lines that we ourselves only heard tell of, or were afraid of.  Our best hope is that they clear the hurdles that felled us and left our knees raw.  When they do triumph, go ahead and cheer Mom.  It’s your victory, too.