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Dr Sacrifice Chirisa Mental Health Matters
The speedy physical and psychological changes that children undergo from birth through adolescence often leave parents and caregivers wondering how best to engage and help them. The process of child development can include everything from sensory awareness and fine motor skills to language and socialisation ability. It is strongly influenced by a child’s genetic makeup, environment, and cognitive skills.
Parents and medical professionals frequently use developmental milestones, such as when a child learns to speak or read, to track that child’s growth relative to their peers.
These milestones can also help identify any learning disabilities or behavioural problems a child may have, so that they can be addressed early, but it is important to note that these are just benchmarks and may have no bearing on a child’s ultimate capabilities.
All children have varying physical and emotional needs, depending on their age, personality, and developmental stage. Decades of research in developmental psychology, paediatrics, and neuroscience converge on the fact that the first five years are especially critical to a child’s outcome.
As a child matures, they will go through phases where they explore their environment, learn verbal and reasoning skills, socialise their independence from their family,
Educators attempt to integrate the findings of developmental psychology and behavioural science into successful curricula, but every generation grapples with questions such as how much to tailor information to individual students and, increasingly, how to integrate technology into classrooms. Some relevant factors for students, parents, and teachers to consider in evaluating these questions may include students’ age, culture, individual strengths and weaknesses, and personal background, as well as any learning disabilities they may have.
In schools, the reality of effects of child development on academic achievement becomes a reality to many parents. The unfortunate thing is that parents most often enter into denial and even accuse the teachers.
The advice is: whenever the teacher at what ever level brings issues to your attention, the best is to take the child for assessment instead of entering a defensive mode.
Dr Sacrifice Chirisa is a passionate consultant psychiatrist at Harare Hospital Psychiatric Unit. He is a certified life and business coach and secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Medical Association
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