Children do develop at different rates. Any parent who has had
even a casual conversation with other parents on the playground
knows that some children develop different skills at different
ages. Perhaps your toddler is working gross motor skills and can
throw a ball, but doesn’t make much more than scribbles on
paper. There are some children who are exceedingly verbal at an
early age, and those who develop normally seem, by comparison,
to be behind in their language acquisition and use. Comparing
children can be dangerous because no two are alike, and parents
can get confused or worried by engaging in a compare and
contrast with other parents. Because of these discrepancies in
development, there are developmental guidelines for normal
childhood development for birth through age 5. It is important
to keep in mind that these guidelines are just that: benchmarks
for development, not hard and fast rules. Parents should
familiarize themselves with these guidelines in order to
determine if their child is lacking i