It is all too often that parents of teens and young adults complain they just don't know their children any more. I would ask the question. Did you ever know your children?

Getting to know your children is an ongoing develpment in a parent-child relationship that starts at birth and continues on throughout life and is a two way street. It is not possible to completely know your children unless they know fully know who you are and what you feel, think, and know too.

Quite often parents understanding of who their child is has been unchanged for some time. The parent's knowledge of their child is stuck in one event, one stage of life, or one idea.

When asked. "Tell me about your child?" Parents often can tally off a great many feats or triumphs of their child such as: He is great at maths. Or. She can swim like a fish. Or. He was hurt in an accident. This kind of response is a stilted form of knowing your child. A deeper understanding of who your child is comes from years of compounding observations, conversations, and experiences.

INFANCY
During infancy, getting to know your child is about watching, listening, offering and accepting affection. It is about understanding and meeting the needs of your child. Getting to know your child in infancy is very much on a physical level.

TODDLER
As an infant begins to toddle and reach out into the world around them getting to know your child changes into one of guarded encouragement and is still very much in the physical realm, though the intellectual and emotional both begin to develop more fully at this stage.

A toddler who needs to be encouraged to reach out and explore and at the same to be guarded from the dangers that exist in their environment also needs to exercise their rapidly developing mind and their broadening scope of emotion.

A parent of a toddler who wants to know their child will spend time allowing the toddler to explore at their own pace and to experience things for themselves. They will also spend time listening to their child begin to develop their language and will provide the child with a range of experiences and environments for the child to explore. The relationship between parent and child shifts from one of the parent observing and meeting the needs of the child to the parent and child interacting on varying levels emotionally, physically, and intellectually. At this time the child's personality is beginning to form into a unique, individual personality. The parent has

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