Measuring a Child-
The first time I have had the experience with children being
measured was when my niece was born. I
would talk to my sister after each doctor’s appointment and she would tell me
how worried she was because my niece would drop a few percentage points in
height or weight. As my niece grew my
sister would continually talk about how she needs to work with her to help be
prepared for her doctor’s appointment.
When I asked her with what, she told me about the questionnaire you have
to complete to show that the child is growing physically, mentally, verbally as
they should. When I had my son, I
finally truly understood what my sister was talking about and why she would get
so worked up about it. It feels like a
test for you and your child! I did
realize that the percentage when measuring a child physically in length and
weight is based on an average. My son
was barely on the charts for both weight and length. It wasn’t because he was malnourished or
delayed, but genetically small. My husband
and I are not tall people nor were we large children. Thankfully our son’s doctor understood our
background and made our own growth curve for our son. I think keeping progress of growth is smart
because you need to make sure your child is growing. You also want to make sure that if there is a
delay of some sort to catch it early. However,
with that said, I also think that parents need to understand that not all
children will follow the average growth curve.
As my niece became school aged, her mother continued to worry about all
the testing that was being constantly done to ensure that she was meeting the
current standards within the state. My
niece has anxiety and all the testing was causing her to not enjoy school and
to “fake” illnesses in order to avoid testing days. I think the testing needs to be done, but
carefully done. The emphasis being positive, not stressful and full of anxiety
from the school officials or the parents.
I know at this time the school was trying to meet standards to ensure
that it remained in good standing with the state and the teachers were feeling
the pressure of making sure the students performed above standards. The stress was falling onto the students and
causing my niece to vomit, hate school, and avoid it all together. I think we need to be careful how we measure
and how we emphasize the importance of the measuring. It is needed, but delicately implemented.
When I was talking about this with my husband’s cousin in
the Philippines, she commented that her child is measured academically quite
often through competitions. These
competitions begin when the children are small and are viewed as how to measure
the worth of the child. If the child is
not winning , then they think something is wrong with the child mentally. Academics is a high priority and if not mentally
able to compete then your child is seen as “nothing”. My husband commented that it saddened him as
a child when his father would compare him to others and yell at him for not
winning the competition. He commented that
it is an awful pressure of succeeding because if you didn’t you brought shame
to your family.
In closing, measuring a child is important to keep record of
how the child is progressing. But it is
very important to allow each child grow
and learn without making them feel that they are any less of a person if they
are not exactly where the other children are.
