Every Phase Matters : Ages at a Glance

Phase: a timeframe in a kid’s life when you can leverage distinctive opportunities to influence their future.

If you’ve stopped to notice, this quote is on the large wall art just inside the entry to our Center. It is so placed because it is a fundamental tenant of the Phase Family Learning Center and can be a daily reminder that we only know our child at this stage in his life one time. That can be a sobering thought (do you need a tissue?), but we hope that when you recognize how much time you have left with your child in this phase that you will make more of it with intentionality. But sometimes in the daily grind, we can become temporarily blinded to each amazing, new thing our little one is moving through.

So, we’ve created what we call a “Year at a Glance” for each year of a child’s life to help us recognize both the challenge and wonder of what it means to love a one-year-old or a five-year-old. These guides provide typical milestones in the areas of social-emotional, cognitive and relational development. Your son or daughter may need more or less time to achieve these milestones and some children will never follow these linear patterns at all. This is meant to foster the practice of pausing to recognize and celebrate the gifts that our children are and the gifts they can give to our families.

These will be printed and available outside each classroom starting Monday, March 1. However, there are also electronic copies available on our website here. Make sure to pick one up outside your child’s classroom and/or print a copy at home. One suggestion is to tape it to your bathroom mirror or over your kitchen sink – someplace where you stand for a few moments each day when your mind can engage with these reminders. Our hope is that this document will spur in you the habit of looking for these little milestones in an effort to pause and be mindful that this moment is just a phase…so, don’t miss it!