Self-care activities in a small child may refer to three tasks:
- Eating
- Toilet training
- Dressing
The development of these activities is largely dependent on biological maturation but is also related to internal motivation. The ease with which children learn to take care of their self is also influenced by parental attitudes. Some Toddlers may insist on doing things for themselves, whereas others may enjoy being more passive and dependent.
Dressing:
Parents are in for a surprise when it comes to the child dressing herself up, because they learn to undress pretty much sooner than they learn to dress. This is one of the many things that the child learns in reverse order.
During the first 12-18 months they are more concerned about taking off their clothes, shoes, and socks. Infants may find special delight in the entire exercise of dressing and changing clothes. If this is not the case, you need to hum to the child, soothe her, and talk to her softly while changing her clothes.
Infants begin to push their arms through sleeves and hold out their feet around one year of age. Most of the childs’ dressing skills develop between 18 months and 3 years. The last skill to be learnt is tying of shoes and buttoning or zipping difficult items.
Eating:
It is interesting to observe how much of mother-child time and interaction involves around food, no matter what the age of the child may be. Being a mom means a lifetime of worry on whether her child has had food/ whether it was enough/ whether it was nutritious/ whether it was hygienically prepared and so on so forth. Nowhere but in India, are so many interactions centered on the issue of food and its consumption.
A major developmental theory asserts how the regular feeding pattern of an infant facilitates the establishment of trust, which is manifest later in life. From the very beginning, feeding an infant is not simply a one –way process. Rather it is interactive. Even a newborn is an active participant in all that happens to her, including the feeding situation. Individuality is expressed in child’s nursing and response to feeding. As a parent, your attitudes and personality characteristics are brought into focus through the feeding situation.
The child slowly moves to the high chair or the dining table. This brings in fresh opportunities for display of self-control and establishing meaning to autonomy. The toddler asserts choices. The nays are expression of the autonomy that the toddler can now exert. This is shown in food preferences’ or refusal to try new things.
This is a dangerous ground. Feeding can quickly become a battleground between the parent and the child. Infants get the message that food can be used as a means of controlling behavior and attracting attention. To go through the period with minimum frustration, follow a golden rule: avoid unnecessary power struggles over food.
Feeding problems develop in most families. Zealous parents try to make their children eat well, careless parents do not feed them properly, indulgent parents give them whatever they want.
How not to have feeding problems:
- Never force feed the child
- Understand that child’s appetites may vary over time to time
- Gradually introduce new foods. Remember, some foods you eat now are what you hated as a child
- No bargains, threats, arguments, controversies on the dining table/ at feeding time
- Generally avoid asking the child what to eat, except for some special occasions
- Letting children dictate what they want can forever make you cater to their whims.
Toilet training:
Establishing control over the bladder and bowel movements is one of the significant tasks of development during infancy. Infants can be conditioned to empty the bladder or bowel at around 2 months. Strict scheduling by the parents may make their life seem easier. The decision to be so strict with toilet training is totally the parent’s call.
But, real voluntary control of the bladder and bowel really begins not before infants are 15-18 months of age. So, it may be advisable to wait until an infant is at least 2 years of age before beginning toilet training. (How to train the baby for the toilet is discussed later under toilet training)
The sequence in which toilet training develops is usually:
- Bowel control
- Daytime bladder control
- Night-time bladder control
It is a common joke among developmental psychologists that the severity of toilet training is inversely proportional to the carpeted area in the child’s home!