Have you ever been told by your child’s doctor not to worry when your child skipped a milestone or didn’t seem to be progressing through the milestone the way you thought they should?
Well if you answered ‘yes’, your mama instincts were correct. The sensory system and motor system when stimulated in certain ways help to develop specific areas of the brain in a tiered manner.
Milestones Matter
Milestones matter. In fact, milestones are huge. If your child skips one or moves through them too quick or doesn’t meet a milestone properly, it can result in poor brain development – the result being difficulties with learning and behaviour.
For example, many moms will tell me their child just kind of ‘bum shuffled’ or dragged one leg behind them when they crawled or that they walked early or that they didn’t walk at all. Contrary to what some pediatricians assure highly in-tune moms, that it’s ‘no big deal’ – it totally is! Your instincts were bang on.
What Brain Development and Building a House Have in Common
Brain development is like building the foundation of a house. If you hired someone to build a house and they told you that it’s no big deal that a few bricks were missing from the foundation or that there were cracks in the foundation, would believe them?
One milestone, movement or developmental phase builds upon another in a sequential manner when it comes to brain development.
If we were all taught that milestones are indications whether our child’s brain is developing properly – our kids would be so much better off.
Timing is Everything!
The brain’s timing mechanism is critical to accurate processing and function as well as proper brain development. The brain and more specifically the left and right side of the brain does not develop all at once but rather takes turns.
The right brain develops first during the first 2 years of life, and this is where children start to develop and improve heir gross motor skills. Think of all those important baby movements like lifting their head and moving their limbs. The left brain does grow during this period but it is mostly the right brain where the development is focused.
Then at between 2-3 years, it is the left brain’s turn to focus on development. The left brain is where language skills occur and this is where children should start to acquire more complex language skills.
Left & Right Brain Development is Back and Forth
This development of the left and right brain will switch back and forth throughout childhood until the brain is mature.
The brain’s timing mechanism being ‘off’ has been identified as one of the factors that can cause problems with brain development.
You know how every year has different seasons in specific order? Milestones are brain development’s schedule. So when something is off with a milestone – like it doesn’t happen – or doesn’t happen fully, then the brain is off schedule. The timing in the brain is off.
If picturing a clock or timer in your brain is hard to believe or doesn’t make sense – let me explain more specifically. Think of your child’s brain having countless roads in which electrical activity is constantly flowing. The brain’s ‘schedule’ or timer gets thrown off when the electrical activity that promotes brain growth gets out of sync.
What’s Causing All of This?
Whether it’s because of environmental toxicity, a previous milestone that was missed or not properly fulfilled, insufficient stimulation at the optimal time, a poorly developed sensory connection or so many other factors, the neurons that were supposed to create a new connection or meet a new milestone, may miss out on their timing to make that connection.
The brain’s pattern of development can fall out of sequence if this happens too often or at a critical time of development, the result can be a delay in specific area of the brain that can impact key skills for learning, behaviour or emotional regulation.
If this delay in brain development occurs in a critical area of the brain it can then slow down the entire growth of that side of the brain. The other side of the brain continues to develop while the other side is falls behind. If this is not addressed, then that same side may continue to miss out on timed connections causing that side of the brain to fall even further behind.
Why Things Can Get Worse as Time Goes On
It is for this reason that a child’s symptoms can become increasingly worse as they get older – one side of the brain keeps falling further and further behind and the other side advances sometimes to the point of overdevelopment.
If we are unaware of the importance of milestones, we may likely not notice any glaring signs of brain imbalance until a child starts school and is required to focus, read, write and perform cognitive tasks.
If your child did not move through milestones typically or if they have learning and behaviour issues, they likely have weak connections and areas of underdevelopment in their brain.
By stimulating the weak connections, a struggling learner can go from ‘managing’ to thriving so your child is not soldiering it out for years – and their self-esteem is no longer compromised!
Are you ready to try an approach that actually goes beyond the conventional approach of band-aid solutions?
If so, book a free Clarity Call to learn more about my program, The Full Potential Formula and how it can help your child rise to their full potential – and how you can finally have peace of mind (and time to yourself!).
