We are in an age of information where ‘google’ has become such a common word, we regularly use it as a verb in sentences (i.e. ‘I googled it’ or ‘I’ll just google it’). Healthcare vendors have switched their marketing campaigns to address a more information savvy public and to assist consumers in making informed decisions. When I go into a book store or do searches online there are tons of book on childhood development, written from every angle, not to mention numerous blogs (like my own) on the topic. With all this in mind, I had to pause when I stumbled across an article titled, ‘Study: Nearly a Third of New Parents Know Little About Infant Development.’ This article looks at areas such as reaching and grabbing for things, object permanence, communication, sharing, and potty training. Some of these translate into gross motor skills although the article was not specifically about gross motor development. This sparked my curiousity and I did my own search looking to see if there was data on how much parents know about their gross motor development. I couldn’t find any data on this although a I found a great check in on your child and their gross motor development. It reminds us that its not just the big milestones that we are looking for such as rolling, crawling and walking, but rather how your child is performing the movement (i.e. quality of movement). That being said, I know as parents you face information overload and find it hard to keep up with all the new information out there and the constant changes to what is best for your child. My question for you is do you feel that you are getting the information you need, especially in terms of gross motor development and what do you still have questions about or feel unsure about? How can we tame the information that is out there so you can use it to best benefit your child’s developement, specifically gross motor development?
