Have you ever been in a situation like this, when your child, for example, shows delayed speech while your friends baby has learned saying some words or your child’s teeth don’t come out while his cousin is already eating and chewing? You’re not alone. While this might happen, it’s not something you should worry about.
Depending on various factors, Individual differences between toddlers can be qualitative or quantitative. They can have differences in their personality, intelligence, height, weight, growth rate...etc
Factors that cause the differences
In order to compare one child to another, all factors have to be standardized. For instance, its known that females develop faster than males during the fetal stage. After birth, the females’ skeleton develops 4 weeks ahead of males. African American babies show rapid skeletal development compared with white children.
How to tell if my toddler is growing properly
You can track physical development in their routine exam. If your child appears like children that are two years younger, you’ll need to check with his doctor. Children may show delayed growth due to various reasons like less growth hormone, or hyposecretion of thyroid hormones.
On the other hand, mental problems are difficult to detect even if you know the red flags, as its easy to confuse them with normal signs of frustration. Most common mental disorders are anxiety, ADHD, autism, mood disorders, schizophrenia. Some signs that the toddler developing properly are:
• Mood changes that last for more than 2 weeks
• Intense feelings like unexplained fear with a racing heart
• Dangerous or out-of-control behavior.
• Difficult to stay focused and low performance at school.
Resources:
Education.com - Individual Differences in Children
Myoclinic - Mental illness in children: Know the signs