Domains of Child Development

This semester I am taking a Child Development class for my Marriage and Family Studies major. I'll be learning a lot in the class and I hope to be able to post some of the more interesting things I've learned.

There are three domains of child development that we have gone over:

1. Biosocial Development – includes all the growth and change that occur in a person's body and the genetic, nutritional and health factors that affect growth and change.
2. Cognitive Development – includes all the mental processes that a person uses to obtain knowledge or to think about the environment (perception, imagination, judgment, memory, language).
3. Psychosocial Development – includes development of emotions, temperament and social skills.

I want you think about a question that my professor asked us:

What is your "main domain"? What were your strengths growing up? Did you focus on academic achievement, making good friends, sports or fitness? Were your parents also gifted in these areas? Describe specific ways your parents facilitated growth in this area.

I believe that this is a good question for anyone to answer. This way you can plan ways to strengthen your children in each of these areas.

For example, my parents always had fruit and veggies out for us to snack on when we got hungry. It was a bit easier to do in the California Central Valley, but it encouraged us to turn to the fruits and veggies when we were hungry. My parents also had given us daily chores to do. This also helps with our Biosocial Development. They signed us up for different sport things for us to do as children: gymnastics, flag football, indoor and outdoor soccer, swimming, diving, softball, baseball, basketball, hockey, etc. We didn't do them all at once. In fact we'd only do one or two at a time. But throughout my childhood I tried them all.

My parents also helped with our Cognitive Development. They'd read to us often and encouraged us to listen to books on tape or CD. We learned the piano and took lessons. We learned together informally through family trips to different places as my dad would point out this or that historical thing or technological advancement.

With Psychosocial Development, my parents had my youngest brother memorize a certain number of students in his class a day at the beginning of Kindergarten. My mother would tell us stories of her youth and what trials she went through and what she wished she would have done instead. My parents also encouraged us to talk to them about our day and how it went. We were to also inform them of our plans with friends.

Each of these areas affect each other and develop together, but sometimes you can feel you are stronger in one area than others. How are ways that you or your parents encouraged growth in these domains?