All of your youngsters are special! However, some of your little ones need educational interventions that are uniquely tailored to their special strengths and challenges. Some of these children may already be identified with a new and possibly intimidating label that makes you worry a little about their future in school. Others may simply require minor adjustments in your care that you had not entirely anticipated. You might be wondering, "Where is the manual for this situation? Does everyone have these parenting and teaching issues?"

Here is where MindNurture can come to the rescue. There are no templates or easy answers for dealing with the requirements of children you love who have struggles that you did not anticipate. If you have questions about a child’s development and learning, the MindNurture staff recommends that you ask! Start by reaching out in your own community for partnerships with other parents or specialists who can help build your knowledge. Knowing what typically developing children do at each developmental stage, or period of growth, is the first step in understanding whether your child or a child you visit is developing within the range that is widely considered "normal." Read about the topics that concern you. Going to the library is a great model for a child of any age or stage!

What else can you do? LearningGames^® can be a very helpful tool. Each book in the series presents a whole year of appropriate activities for any child from birth to age 5. Choose the book that includes the age of your child and read the section about what to expect in terms of motor, cognitive, social, and language development during that year. Begin with the levels of skills that your child already has, and check off behaviors that she has mastered. Make sure that she can play each checked LearningGames activity in lots of settings; with a variety of suitable materials; and with other people in your household, center, or caseload. You can track her skills with the LearningGames Progress Record and Assessment Instrument. You can even write short notes about the quality of her play and the range of her interest in and attention to certain activities. Then look for patterns. Scan the table of contents for developmental themes, and determine whether the child you are concerned about has difficulty with particular kinds of activities. For example, she may struggle with activities that require understanding simple directions, sharing, or classifying. 

When you have identified his or her strengths and needs, you can decide next steps for a child who seems to learn differently from what you usually expect of a child that age. Keep playing the LearningGames! They are meant to be used creatively in many spaces and places. You will be observing important details about what, when, and how the child in your care is progressing. You will be prepared and informed if you decide to refer her for further evaluation in a critical area of development. Remember that all children have their own unique styles, preferences, temperaments, and general timetables for learning. However, you will have some clues about possible problems if your child is really having a hard time with activities that are usually mastered within the years identified in the appropriate LearningGames book.

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