Milestone Anxiety is a real thing and often not talked about. I welcome a mom in the PDT community to chat about her 15 month old son who is not walking. We discuss:

• Why milestone anxiety can happen
• How to approach milestone anxiety to find more peace and progress
• How to encourage walking

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00;00;00;00 – 00;00;24;00

Dr. Mona

As a pediatrician, I can tell you honestly. Some kids walk super early but talk super late. Some kids have amazing cognitive skills like are able to put puzzles together at 18 months and some, just by nature are not able to do that until 3 or 4. This doesn’t make any child superior in any way. You know, I think a lot of society hits these milestones to make it this like bragging thing, right?

 

00;00;24;01 – 00;00;43;00

Dr. Mona

Like, oh, my kid walked at eight months. That’s wonderful that your kid walked at eight months. But your child will also do something later than their peer. Maybe in preschool. But that doesn’t mean that your child is not good enough. It doesn’t mean that your child isn’t worthy in their own right, right? Because we all, like even adults, thrive and have different strengths and weaknesses.

 

00;00;43;00 – 00;00;48;17

Dr. Mona

But that doesn’t make us better or worse. It just makes us different.

 

00;00;48;20 – 00;01;09;11

Dr. Mona

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the show and another episode of Monday Mornings with Doctor Mona, where I talk to parents in the pedes doctor community about their concern. This podcast continues to grow because of you and your reviews, so thank you so much for tuning in each week for all that you do to share this podcast and the reviews that you leave.

 

00;01;09;11 – 00;01;37;07

Dr. Mona

It means so much to me and I cannot wait to continue to watch this podcast grow in 2023. On this episode, I welcome a parent to talk about her 15 month old son who is not yet fully walking. He cruises, he pulls to stand, but he’s not walking and the mom has milestone anxiety and some mom guilt. Make sure you listen to the entire episode, especially at the end, where I wrap up with three principles that can really help.

 

00;01;37;13 – 00;01;45;28

Dr. Mona

If you’re dealing with milestone anxiety. And I also want to wrap up some tips on encouraging your child to walk. Stay tuned for the conversation.

 

00;01;46;01 – 00;01;54;04

Dr. Mona

So thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode. So tell me what is on your mind today as a mom?

 

00;01;54;06 – 00;02;12;26

Mom

Yes. So my biggest concern right now is that I have a 15 month old boy and he isn’t walking just yet, so he will do things when he’s tall and when he’s encouraged. But then once he gets upset about it, he just doesn’t want to practice anymore. So that’s where the biggest challenge is for me right now.

 

00;02;12;28 – 00;02;22;22

Dr. Mona

And what has been, you would say, the hardest part of this, in terms of him not walking because I know sometimes I can cause, like, a lot of stress or guilt. What’s going on right now with how you’re feeling about everything?

 

00;02;22;24 – 00;02;45;08

Mom

Sure. So I think the hardest part for me has really been, it kind of pairs with mom guilt. I’ve had recently family members tell me that. Oh, you know, your child’s not walking here, and so-and-so’s child is walking. You should probably get early intervention involved. And while I deep down think that, you know, it may help, I just can’t help but feel inadequate about myself.

 

00;02;45;08 – 00;03;03;19

Mom

Or perhaps not doing enough to help him reach his milestones that perhaps, you know, it would need a third party to help him do better. And also, I am a first time mom, so I sometimes feel if I was kind of better educated to know what kind of exercises or etc. to do with him, I may be able to perform better as a mom as well.

 

00;03;03;19 – 00;03;07;01

Mom

So it’s kind of paired with a lot of anxiety on that standpoint.

 

00;03;07;03 – 00;03;23;17

Dr. Mona

Absolutely. And I wanted to ask that because milestone anxiety is a real thing. You know, I don’t think people talk about it as much. Or maybe you haven’t talked to another parent about it, but I hear about it a lot in my office, on my social media accounts and what this kind of is just for anyone who’s unfamiliar.

 

00;03;23;17 – 00;03;52;22

Dr. Mona

It’s this feeling and worry that your child is not meeting certain developmental milestones. So maybe they’re on the later end of meeting a milestone, which we’ll talk about walking in just a bit. And when we talk about milestones, we’re talking about when generally most kids are doing that activity. So taking walking as an example. Most kids will walk at some point between eight months, which sounds crazy early, but eight months to 18 months is the normal range of hey, this is when a child should walk.

 

00;03;52;22 – 00;04;15;05

Dr. Mona

So I say that range because eight months to 18 months is a ten month time frame, right? And yes, most kids will walk around the age of 12 to 14 months. When I say most like majority of children. But having a child who’s not walking by 18 months is not necessarily a huge red flag. Of course, it kind of raises a little bit of our radar.

 

00;04;15;14 – 00;04;24;15

Dr. Mona

Are they doing other things okay, in terms of their motor milestones? So for your son, who is 15 months, is he is pulling to stand and cruising, right?

 

00;04;24;18 – 00;04;25;11

Mom

He is. Yes.

 

00;04;25;11 – 00;04;36;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah. So that’s really great. Meaning we want to see that it’s coming. And it sounds like you said that he’s able to kind of practice at some points, but sometimes he kind of will stop or maybe wants to do it when he kind of feels like it. Right.

 

00;04;36;21 – 00;04;37;29

Mom

Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.

 

00;04;38;02 – 00;04;56;07

Dr. Mona

So there is that reality that okay, I agree with you that we are seeing that that milestone will come and that he has the precursors, right? He’s able to pull up to stand and he’s able to cruise, meaning hold on to an object and kind of walk across that object like a couch or something like that, which is really good signs that the walking is coming.

 

00;04;56;12 – 00;05;18;17

Dr. Mona

I like to talk about that because when we’re looking at milestone anxiety, you already brought up some really good points here that a lot of that anxiety can come from. Am I doing enough, like you said, like, am I doing everything I need to? Am I not doing enough? Why is my child not walking at 12 months like my friend down the street or my relatives child, you know, so it can make you feel like you’re not doing enough.

 

00;05;18;20 – 00;05;36;27

Dr. Mona

And then the other thing is, like you said, there can be anxiety of this. Well, I don’t want there to be anything, quote unquote wrong with my child that they need extra help or I can’t be the one to provide that help for my child. Right. Like meaning with walking, like you said, like, having to go to a physical therapist or something like that.

 

00;05;37;01 – 00;05;40;04

Dr. Mona

So at this point, no early intervention, right?

 

00;05;40;15 – 00;05;50;03

Mom

I haven’t yeah. So he’s had an assessment actually for early intervention and that says we haven’t really received a plan. We don’t really know what we’re doing moving forward just yet.

 

00;05;50;06 – 00;05;54;14

Dr. Mona

And what has your pediatrician said about the walking or lack of walking?

 

00;05;54;17 – 00;06;13;17

Mom

Sure. So my pediatrician has actually said, that she she actually said something similar about, you know, 18 months. So she’s not so overly concerned right now. I think it’s more. In all honesty, it may just be a lot more, you know, to do with me and seeing my peers and their kids walking. And you know, kind of just generally having that concern.

 

00;06;14;03 – 00;06;23;10

Mom

You know, it’s reassuring when people say that there’s that 18 month, you know, that kind of target. But, you know, and I’m hoping that he’s moving in the right direction. But yeah, that’s kind of like the biggest thing.

 

00;06;23;12 – 00;06;39;12

Dr. Mona

And I like to always say that even though we know that, yes, 18 months is when we would expect that. But I do believe, like you said already earlier, that it’s important that you kind of know. Well, what can I do while I’m waiting for this to happen, right. Like, obviously we know that the milestones can happen as late as 18 months.

 

00;06;39;12 – 00;07;08;27

Dr. Mona

Meaning if they’re not walking by 18 months, absolutely. Probably needs to have another evaluation just to confirm everything’s okay. But knowing the skills you know of, like, well, what can I do at home with him? And then of course, there’s so many resources. So kind of looking at repeatable resources, whether that’s YouTube from a physical therapist, chatting with physical therapist friends or, you know, chatting with pediatrician or resources that I have on my platform to kind of say, okay, here are the tips that I can use to help foster this skill at home.

 

00;07;08;27 – 00;07;29;29

Dr. Mona

You know, I use the example of like, if a child’s not meeting certain speech milestones, right? We know that the language will probably quote unquote come, but how are we going to engage that child while we are waiting for the milestone? You know, the official like, okay, they’re meeting X amount of words by that time. And so you have kind of got some tips already for kind of how to foster that at home.

 

00;07;30;11 – 00;07;32;11

Mom

But not too many of them just yet know.

 

00;07;32;13 – 00;07;47;29

Dr. Mona

Okay. Well, I’m going to link some to the show notes. Also some options there, like maybe some links of like videos. I have some in my course, but that’s obviously in my course. But I would love to, you know, any resources online. But a lot of it is like you said, we know that he has the motor ability.

 

00;07;47;29 – 00;08;02;10

Dr. Mona

Right? Well, when I say motor ability, I know that he’s pulling up to stand and he’s cruising. So there’s those precursors there. If you were to stand with him and put him on the ground, on his feet and just let go of him, would he balance or would he fall immediately to the ground?

 

00;08;02;22 – 00;08;03;22

Mom

He falls.

 

00;08;03;24 – 00;08;10;11

Dr. Mona

He falls. Have how long have you been able to see him balance for on his two feet without holding on to anything?

 

00;08;10;13 – 00;08;26;11

Mom

Yeah, he’s balanced. I, like a short handful of seconds. Probably like 3 or 4 seconds. You know, I kind of feel like he. He is increasing, and he’s trying because I see his foot placement. But he’s he’s not quite there yet with just standing independently.

 

00;08;26;13 – 00;08;52;00

Dr. Mona

So when we talk about walking, I kind of like to describe it as he obviously needs the strength to be able to do it like the muscle strength. So we know that he’s getting there because of the fact that he’s able to pull up and cruise. Right. These are really important motor strength skills I need to see the other components of walking are being able to balance on your own two feet and feeling confident on your own two feet, which are the hardest things for a young toddler to kind of learn sometimes, right?

 

00;08;52;01 – 00;09;10;28

Dr. Mona

Because for a year they’ve been kind of horizontal crawling or scooting and now they’re being told, okay, here are your two feet. Now I want you to figure out how to balance and then move forward on it. Right. So balance, you know, I do something called balance practice, which is basically where we want to build up and really get excited about practicing balance time.

 

00;09;10;28 – 00;09;31;10

Dr. Mona

So what I usually do is when we were practicing balance with Ryan, I would put him on his own two feet and I would let him go and I would excitedly count up right, like one. And I would sit down on the ground with him, almost like a coach. Right? One, two, three, four. And then when he fell to the ground, I’d be like, you did four seconds!

 

00;09;31;10 – 00;09;48;02

Dr. Mona

Yay! And I would build up that excitement of practicing balance, right? Because balance is part of the whole ability to walk. So try to work on more what I call balance practice. And that means nothing, right? Not holding on to anything. We know he knows how to cruise. We know he knows how to pull up so that you can practice.

 

00;09;48;02 – 00;10;07;01

Dr. Mona

But what’s more important now is that we are doing balance practice with either counting up, counting down, but really sitting on the ground with him. You’re on your knees and you’re like looking at him as his body is trying to like, whoa, you know, balance there and really work with him on that. And once he gets the balance, then you can start to kind of work with, okay.

 

00;10;07;01 – 00;10;26;17

Dr. Mona

Now walking towards mommy or walking towards, someone else or something else that’s very exciting to the child, because it’s really hard to get the child to physically move when they don’t have the confidence in the balance. Right? Like they have to feel comfortable on their own two feet that they can balance, and that they’re going to be safe before they’ll actually start taking the steps.

 

00;10;26;17 – 00;10;50;10

Dr. Mona

So I really like focusing on that balance opportunity more. And then we can start to maybe see him, you know, once he’s realizing I can do five seven seconds balance, he may start to move the foot and be like, oh, I moved the foot and I’m still standing. This is pretty cool. And then when he does fall, I just say, when you do get to that point where he is taking a step right when he does fall, we want to give him time to get back up on his own.

 

00;10;50;10 – 00;11;07;19

Dr. Mona

So we don’t want to, you know, all this, all this. We want to allow the child to have trial and error. So just say you’re doing balance practice. And he falls to the ground. Yeah. You stood for four seconds. That’s so great. You want to see what he does to try to get back up? Does he crawl to the side of the couch to pull to stand?

 

00;11;07;20 – 00;11;26;24

Dr. Mona

What is he going to do versus picking him back up right away? We want him to understand the cognitive skill of what it means to fall, and then eventually get back up. Like these are all kind of putting all the developmental domains together, right? The cognitive as well as the motor. And sometimes we need to focus on that cognitive skill, which is process and trial and error.

 

00;11;26;24 – 00;11;42;26

Dr. Mona

Right. What happens when I fall? What happens if I balance and I put my foot forward and then I stumble, you know, give him an opportunity to figure out what that means. Obviously, if he’s like wailing and crying, you know, give him a hug and get him back up, but see what he’ll do with the trial and error.

 

00;11;42;26 – 00;11;47;28

Dr. Mona

And I feel like that is also a huge confidence builder to get that ball rolling with the walking.

 

00;11;48;00 – 00;11;50;20

Mom

That sounds great. That’s really helpful advice. Yeah.

 

00;11;50;20 – 00;12;11;00

Dr. Mona

So these are the tips I was going to link anyways. But this is great. This is what I figured we could talk about that because we’re talking about walking. But I like to explain that, you know, because sometimes we feel like, oh, they’ll just start walking and some kids do. Some kids don’t have the issue with balance. And confidence, but it is very common for a child to be unsure of this new skill because like any new skill, it’s something they haven’t done before.

 

00;12;11;00 – 00;12;28;22

Dr. Mona

And so we already know that he can pull, he can cruise. So now we’re going to focus on the balance. And then we’re going to focus on allowing him space to just really feel what it feels like to fall in a safe space, obviously something soft or whatever. And get back up. And I think you’re going to see that giving him more opportunity is going to be great.

 

00;12;28;22 – 00;12;52;21

Dr. Mona

And then in terms of like using a walker, like we don’t recommend or people don’t use those walkers where they’re sitting in, but even those push cart walkers, you know, like those walkers that you can kind of push around, like an island or the dining table. I would hold on those until you’re seeing that he is taking some steps, like 3 to 4 steps on his own, because then that can help foster that confidence.

 

00;12;52;21 – 00;13;09;18

Dr. Mona

Right? But I don’t want us to use any walker before like and I’m talking again the push walkers. Nothing like that. The kids sitting in because that’s not safe. But those push walkers wait until you’re seeing like a few steps, like 4 to 5 steps on his own, and then you can allow him to push that thing around like a little shopping cart, if you will.

 

00;13;09;18 – 00;13;23;20

Dr. Mona

If it looks like that, to get the confidence of, oh, I’m walking like I may need help, but I like to do that. Once we see the independent steps happening, even just a little bit. So we know he has the balance there and the sort of confidence to build off of.

 

00;13;23;22 – 00;13;24;11

Mom

That’s great.

 

00;13;24;11 – 00;13;42;02

Dr. Mona

Yes, yes of course. And so now that we talked about this right. So when we talk about miles with anxiety, I want to always remind families that, number one, every child is unique. And when they’re going to meet a milestone. So we look at milestones as a range. Right. So I want you to always look at the child in front of you.

 

00;13;42;02 – 00;14;01;14

Dr. Mona

Because what happens when you start to compare our children to other children, right. We get into a race to reach the milestone, which can actually negatively impact the interaction with your own child, like with your son. Right? I’m giving this kind of scenario. You are so excited about him walking. Okay, you want him to walk? I know you do.

 

00;14;01;16 – 00;14;16;26

Dr. Mona

This is such an important thing for you all and I get why you want him to walk. But because of your concern of wanting him to walk, you may be less patient when he falls, right? Because you’re so excited. You’re like, you can do this. You can do this. You can quickly pick him back up. You quickly put him back.

 

00;14;16;26 – 00;14;33;16

Dr. Mona

When I’m trying to say that sometimes we need to take a pause and see what they can do before we help them. I like to use the example of like when people are trying to teach their children to speak. You could be so excited to teach your child to speak that you continually say, okay, see ball, see mama, see data, that there’s no pausing, right?

 

00;14;33;16 – 00;14;54;27

Dr. Mona

You’re not allowing them time to show you what they can do in reciprocity. Right. And a lot of development is giving them space. And then being there to help them if they need it. So I often find that when we’re so concerned about meeting a milestone, it can often take away from the actual play and process of actually meeting the milestone because we want it to happen so badly.

 

00;14;55;01 – 00;14;55;25

Dr. Mona

Does that make sense?

 

00;14;56;01 – 00;14;57;03

Mom

That makes sense, yes.

 

00;14;57;03 – 00;15;13;04

Dr. Mona

Yeah. So I really want you to kind of remember when you’re playing with him, I’m going to do these tips. We’re going to make it fun. We’re going to do balance practice. We’re going to make it a big deal. Like good job. You’re balancing. And you can say you’re standing, you’re doing so good and you’re making it very excited for him.

 

00;15;13;07 – 00;15;31;16

Dr. Mona

So he knows that well I just did something. And my caregiver my mommy is so excited about it. Maybe it’s safe and maybe I can continue doing it right. And then you’re staying in the moment because when you have any sort of anxiety, milestone, anxiety or otherwise, we tend to go into the future too much saying, oh, it should be like this.

 

00;15;31;21 – 00;15;46;17

Dr. Mona

He needs to meet this milestone by next time. And then we also go into the past a lot, right? Like I should have done this. Is he not walking because of X, Y and Z? And I don’t want us to go down that slippery slope because then we’re not staying in the moment, which is what we should be doing.

 

00;15;46;20 – 00;16;05;12

Dr. Mona

And any time with our child. Right? Versus thinking about all the things that could have gone wrong, have gone wrong. That’s not helpful at this moment. Right? Right now we want to help your son walk. And so really trying to stay in the moment by saying, we’re going to make this fun for both me and you. We’re going to really do this so that you meet your trajectory.

 

00;16;05;15 – 00;16;20;27

Dr. Mona

You may walk at 16 months, and then I’m never going to be able to stop you from walking. Right. That’s usually how this goes, right? And I can’t wait to hear from you that he’s finally walking. But we want to kind of focus on that child and say, I’m here for you to really help you with what you need.

 

00;16;20;27 – 00;16;42;04

Dr. Mona

And that may look different from another child. And as a pediatrician, I can tell you honestly, some kids walk super early, but talk super late. Some kids have amazing cognitive skills like are able to put puzzles together at 18 months and some, just by nature are not able to do that until 3 or 4. This doesn’t make any child superior in any way.

 

00;16;42;04 – 00;16;58;00

Dr. Mona

You know, I think a lot of society hits these milestones to make it this like bragging thing, right? Like, oh, my kid walked at eight months. That’s wonderful that your kid walked at eight months, but your child will also do something later than their peer. Maybe in preschool. But that doesn’t mean that your child is not good enough.

 

00;16;58;00 – 00;17;16;05

Dr. Mona

It doesn’t mean that your child isn’t worthy in their own right, right? Because we all, like even adults, thrive and have different strengths and weaknesses. But that doesn’t make us better or worse. It just makes us different. It’s so important to remember that, especially when you find yourself in that comparison game, because that’s hard to do. We all do it as parents.

 

00;17;16;07 – 00;17;18;19

Mom

Absolutely. You’re so right right now.

 

00;17;18;19 – 00;17;26;20

Dr. Mona

Obviously, this is your only son. Do you have another family or child that’s constantly in your guys’s life that did walk a little bit earlier than him?

 

00;17;27;01 – 00;17;45;02

Mom

We’ve got a close family friend, whose son, you know, pretty much crawled and walked and met, you know, a lot of those milestones much earlier. Yes. And then my son has a couple of cousins. We don’t spend a crazy amount of time with them, but we have, you know, when we are in touch or on FaceTime, they’re very active and they’re, you know, moving about quite a lot.

 

00;17;45;02 – 00;17;48;14

Mom

So, so, yeah, they’re they’re kind of the comparisons.

 

00;17;48;17 – 00;18;04;29

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And it’s really again, when you’re looking at that, I want to say it in the nicest way possible. This is so great that they’re doing that right. We don’t want to be mad at them for their child walking early, obviously. I hope they’re not being like conceited about it. Right. Like I hope they’re never like making you feel like this is something bad or anything like that.

 

00;18;05;07 – 00;18;20;08

Dr. Mona

But I really want you to kind of say, okay, this is what he gets to do. My son is going to thrive in different ways in terms of meeting certain milestones earlier than later. But my son is doing well, like he is doing what he needs to do right now, and we are working with him on it. Right.

 

00;18;20;08 – 00;18;38;15

Dr. Mona

Like I got the tools, you know, I talked to you about some tips here and then also, I know that, you know, I have my pediatrician at 18 months, we’re going to check in again. We’re going to continue to watch this. Which leads me to the other point about, you know, sometimes we get worried about needing services, you know, like finally having to do speech therapy or physical therapy.

 

00;18;38;15 – 00;19;08;04

Dr. Mona

And I can say how I look at this is that I look at it in a reframing mindset of, yes, if my child is not able to meet a certain milestone on their own, how fortunate are we as parents to have resources like a speech therapist or physical therapist in this situation if we need it, right? It doesn’t mean that you will, but if we need it, they can give you the tools to help that child reach the milestone or reach that developmental outcome that we want them to be meeting.

 

00;19;08;04 – 00;19;26;02

Dr. Mona

Right. So I look at it as not a negative of having like, you know, sometimes parents will come into my office and feel like they don’t want a label of speech delay or not walking. But I always say like, this is for the betterment of the child, and that we’re allowing them to have the resources they need to help you.

 

00;19;26;02 – 00;19;49;24

Dr. Mona

Right? Like we cannot do this alone. There’s going to be so many things in our life as mothers, as parents, that we’re going to have to rely on help. Right? It may not be like this right now with the physical therapist, but maybe down the line my son will need help from an allergist or from another specialist. And I kind of look at it the same way that even though it’s help for walking, it’s still help for your child.

 

00;19;49;24 – 00;20;08;03

Dr. Mona

Like how you would get help for any other medical thing. Right? And so I want to normalize this as help that is beneficial versus a stigma of, oh, this is like you couldn’t do it alone. We’re not meant to do everything alone. Sometimes our children need help. And I can say from like my experience, like even the parents who are doing everything that I’m mentioning, right?

 

00;20;08;03 – 00;20;27;00

Dr. Mona

Like the balancing and all that stuff, sometimes we do need the help to help with their strength or motor skills, all of that. And that is why these, you know, specialists exist because that’s their passion. And so it’s almost like, hey, I get to see someone who really wants to help my child, and I’ll learn some things as well, and we’re going to reach the best outcome for my son.

 

00;20;27;00 – 00;20;30;04

Dr. Mona

And that is an awesome thing for him and our family.

 

00;20;30;24 – 00;20;32;12

Mom

Absolutely. You’re so right.

 

00;20;32;14 – 00;20;39;23

Dr. Mona

And it can be so hard when you’re in it to kind of feel this way. Is there any other kind of question or feelings that come up in this process?

 

00;20;40;04 – 00;20;55;11

Mom

No, I think they were the main things. And it’s really nice that you broke it down, you know, so well because I think so often we always, you know, think forward that, you know, we will always want to aim for the bigger picture. You know, there are baby steps that we have to take prior to that. Like with the balancing, for example.

 

00;20;55;11 – 00;21;19;07

Mom

You know, I thought you know, him balancing across, you know, while he’s cruising or something is good. But little did I know that independent balance is very integral to walking. And when you broke it down, for me, it makes so much more sense now that I’m eager and excited to go and be able to do that with him and make it exciting, but we just get so caught up with the bigger picture that, you know, sometimes you forget that there are things prior that you need to think about.

 

00;21;19;10 – 00;21;42;26

Dr. Mona

Oh, absolutely. And that’s all part of perspective. When we talk about reframing, you know, I talked about already about reframing when you’re feeling the comparison and all of that, like how you kind of can say, okay, this is our story. This is something that we’re doing together. And a huge part of that reframing is perspective of understanding. The big picture is important, but also like the little parts of it, when we look at the big picture, it is understanding that this is one moment.

 

00;21;42;26 – 00;21;59;14

Dr. Mona

I’m so grateful for hearing your story, that you are seeing some really good things that I know walking is going to happen. I can tell you already that whether it’s with a physical therapist or not, and it may not, I have a feeling you won’t need it. I think it’s coming because of the fact that I’m hearing that he has the it’s there like it’s almost there.

 

00;21;59;22 – 00;22;21;24

Dr. Mona

I know that when he starts walking, you know you’re going to not be able to stop him. Okay. And I say this in the best way, hopeful way, because you’re going to feel it’s all going to melt away all these feelings that you had when you were like to say, five months from now, you’re going to say, remember when I felt worried about you not walking or like you’re going to tell your partner, you know about that, and I don’t want you to ever forget that feeling because that was part of your life.

 

00;22;21;24 – 00;22;42;21

Dr. Mona

Or, you know, right now when you’re feeling worried about the walking. But I want you to take that feeling and say, well, look at it. I was feeling really worried or insecure, but look at what we did. Look at what’s happening now. Like, I honestly like sometimes when we go through really hard times, whether that’s with anxiety or worry, and we get through the other side, I hope that you always can tell yourself I’m stronger.

 

00;22;42;21 – 00;22;59;10

Dr. Mona

And I did such amazing things, and I’m so grateful for this experience and that I learned that it’s going to be fine, that I have the help if I need it, that this is what’s going to happen for us. And this is our story. This is my son’s story. You know, this is not anyone else’s story that I have to compare with.

 

00;22;59;12 – 00;23;22;00

Dr. Mona

And like I said, the goal of engaging with our children is to help them reach their own potential and nobody else’s. Right. This shouldn’t be that. We want them to reach this outcome compared to someone else. But the unfortunate reality of milestones doesn’t allow us to do that, right? But we can allow them to reach their milestones and their own potential by our own education, which I hope.

 

00;23;22;00 – 00;23;36;24

Dr. Mona

Like I said, this helped on this episode or with the help of specialists if we need it. And this is all part of a big perspective picture of getting our kids the help that they need, the guidance that they need, and understanding that we are not needing to do this on our own.

 

00;23;36;26 – 00;23;39;01

Mom

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

 

00;23;39;03 – 00;23;57;06

Dr. Mona

I’m so excited to hear how he does. I feel like he’s going to start walking, and I know it’s can be sometimes hard to hear this, but I have a lot of situations where we had these concerns and then we talk about it either in my office or, you know, maybe even this conversation. And then a few weeks later, you know, we’re like, what, the child’s walking.

 

00;23;57;06 – 00;24;14;18

Dr. Mona

So I hope that that’s our situation here for your son. And if it’s not, I also want to say that it’s okay. Right. It’s okay if that he’s not walking and that we do need to get that extra other early intervention assessment. We need to do that again because all of it makes sense. So but I’m hopeful for you that you’re going to get the guidance.

 

00;24;14;18 – 00;24;16;27

Dr. Mona

And he’s going to start walking either way.

 

00;24;16;29 – 00;24;34;05

Mom

Thank you I definitely feel better place. You know even mentally just through this conversation that there are things that I can do, you know, to kind of help progress and along. So I’m really excited to use all the tips that you’ve given, and I’m really thankful that you’ve taken the time to listen to me today and given me reassurance that things are going to be okay.

 

00;24;34;07 – 00;24;53;16

Dr. Mona

Of course, I love this series on my podcast. You know, obviously I talk about not only development parenting, but also that kind of mindset approach to this very difficult situations. And I was really excited to talk to you about milestone anxiety, because it exists in so many ways. And, you know, I didn’t mention, but I also had milestone anxiety for Ryan.

 

00;24;53;16 – 00;25;16;23

Dr. Mona

You know, he had a stroke when he was born. And that diagnosis already puts milestones and development on my radar even more. Right? Because when you have a stroke, there is a concern that he won’t meet certain milestones. So I was like a hawk, like watching his milestones, and it caused me to get very stressed. And the example I gave where because you’re so worried about the milestones, sometimes you don’t enjoy playtime.

 

00;25;16;29 – 00;25;33;14

Dr. Mona

That happened to me where I was so stressed about him not talking because he was a little bit of a later talker that I would just get so like, okay, see ball, see this, do this. But I wasn’t allowing him the time. Like I said, the pausing for him to register the word and be able to speak it back to me.

 

00;25;33;14 – 00;25;50;29

Dr. Mona

And I had to do the things that I’m telling you. I had to take a step back. I had to reframe. I had to really remember that he and me are in this together. This is our story together, that my responsibility is to guide him. So I love to share these stories and this experience because I know I’m not alone and I know you’re not alone.

 

00;25;51;02 – 00;25;54;25

Dr. Mona

There are so many of our listeners are also not alone in this experience as well.

 

00;25;54;28 – 00;26;06;17

Mom

Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, I kind of wish I had that to refer to. So I’m hoping that this, you know, moving forward, it’s not only helped me, but I’m sure it’ll help so many other people. And I’m so grateful to you for that.

 

00;26;06;19 – 00;26;31;12

Dr. Mona

So I want to wrap up this conversation with three parenting principles that apply to if you’re dealing with milestone anxiety. But first, as a bonus, I wanted to just elaborate more on some tips to encourage walking. And there are so many. And it also depends on what your child is doing based on motor skills. But if your child is cruising, pulling to stand, which is what I talk about with this mom, here are some tips.

 

00;26;31;14 – 00;26;48;01

Dr. Mona

Encourage trial and error. Like we mentioned, I want to make sure that you’re giving your child opportunity to feel how it feels to fall, but also get back up. Of course, in a safe environment, maybe a placemat, or in your home, or even in the grass. This can really help them figure out. Well, now that I fell, what am I supposed to do?

 

00;26;48;07 – 00;27;01;12

Dr. Mona

Also, control your facial expressions when they do fall. We know that it can be a little bit scary when they fall, but stay calm in your face. See what they can do. Of course, if they need you, you’re going to be right there. But we want to see if they can figure out, well, what do I do next?

 

00;27;01;12 – 00;27;24;03

Dr. Mona

Am I going to get back up? Am I going to try to crawl to an item, to pull, to stand and then start to walk again? And this can be very encouraging. Like I also mentioned, allow for balance. Time is what I call balance practice. This is one of the key steps. You can also help them with balance by guiding them and holding their hands or holding underneath their underarms or their armpits to kind of guide them as they take steps.

 

00;27;24;07 – 00;27;51;01

Dr. Mona

This can help them get that motion that’s needed to walk. Also work on their balance, but have you with them to feel secure in case they’re feeling a little bit wobbly. Do this as well as the balance practice, which I mentioned with the mom on this episode, where you’re allowing them to feel how it feels to balance on their own two feet, applaud them when they try positive reinforcement whenever you can, and also give them opportunities to practice inside your home in the grass.

 

00;27;51;01 – 00;28;16;13

Dr. Mona

Whenever you can. And you want to also put things around that may be exciting. Maybe it’s someone that they really love to walk towards or move towards. Maybe it’s a favorite toy. Give them opportunities to use this new budding skill to get to where they need to go. It’s kind of how we can encourage crawling as well. When we start to see that they’re starting to do it and we need to get them actually moving, putting items that are really familiar or very exciting to them to encourage the process.

 

00;28;16;18 – 00;28;41;19

Dr. Mona

And the last thing is skip the shoes. You know they’re not yet walking shoes are more decorative than they are functional at this age. So skip them. They want to be able to feel their feet against the floor. Learn what that means to move their foot up and not have a shoe in the way of doing that. Once they start taking steps into gently and you see them doing like 10 to 15 steps, you can start to do shoes with a flexible sole and have them wear that when they’re outside.

 

00;28;41;19 – 00;28;57;23

Dr. Mona

But when you’re indoors to help practice the walking, when you’re outside in the grass, try to encourage them being barefoot so that they can learn the skills to actually walk and get moving. I wanted to do that as a bonus because we were talking about walking and I talked to the mom on this episode about it, but I wanted to elaborate more.

 

00;28;57;27 – 00;29;19;26

Dr. Mona

But like I said, to wrap up this episode, the three things I want you to remember when you’re approaching milestone anxiety, number one is reframing. Rather than telling yourself that I am not doing enough, that my child is not meeting a certain milestone, I want you to tell yourself that I am doing enough. I am recognizing that my child may need some extra assistance, and I’m going to get that help if I need it.

 

00;29;19;28 – 00;29;40;18

Dr. Mona

Reframe the entire situation here so that you’re in control and that you have the power. We cannot control every development, tool and health outcome for our children, for ourselves. So it’s so important to remember that we are doing our best and utilizing the resources if you need it. The second thing is talking about perspective, which we talked about in detail in this episode.

 

00;29;40;21 – 00;30;01;18

Dr. Mona

It’s really important to look at things as a big picture, but also as what do I need to do to make a skill or certain thing happen? Do I want to practice more with balancing? Am I not doing that enough? Do I want to practice more with my assistants? You want to look at that when you’re trying to reach, for example, a walking milestone, and then you also want to put things into perspective.

 

00;30;01;21 – 00;30;24;05

Dr. Mona

Even though my child is not yet walking and is 15 months as an example, he is pulling to stand. He is cruising. This is really great. I know that the milestone is that they should be walking by 18 months. You have to work on it to get there and you want to look at if that’s not developing, if that’s not happening, how am I going to get the help that my child needs to reach the outcome that’s meant for their trajectory?

 

00;30;24;09 – 00;30;43;07

Dr. Mona

And the last thing is avoiding comparison. This is so important because like I said, it’s so easy to fall into that trap of my child isn’t doing this. My child’s not good enough, my child is not as good as another child. But we really want to remember that our child in front of us is the most important. They may be a late walker, but they may be an early talker.

 

00;30;43;07 – 00;31;04;13

Dr. Mona

They may be better at puzzles. Like I mentioned, they may be doing things better than other children and not be doing things as good as other children. Everyone just is different. When looking at a milestone, look at the range. Take walking for example. It can happen anywhere from eight months to 18 months. You also want to make sure that you have the skills and tools to foster that developmental skill.

 

00;31;04;16 – 00;31;26;02

Dr. Mona

It’s easy to say, okay, by 18 months your child should walk. But of course, if your child is not walking, I think it’s important that you get some education and some advice so they can reach that milestone and you’re working with them to reach their developmental potential. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode. I love having parents on from the PDT community.

 

00;31;26;06 – 00;31;43;05

Dr. Mona

Remember that if you want to be on the podcast and ask me your question about parenting development, help, whatever is on your mind, make sure to get on my email list, because that is how I send out the form to invite guests onto the podcast. And I cannot wait to talk to another parent next week.