There’s something about being a parent that brings out the competitive nature in people. Whether consciously or subconsciously, a whole heap of comparing and contrasting goes on whenever a critical mass of parents gather. At an early age, it’s about whether your child has started weaning before or after other kids. A little later, it’s potty training – there’s always a kid in your group that is walking its way onto the potty at 18 months, when your kid is still exploding in a shower of piss and poop all over itself at two-and-a-half years. At school, there’s always a parent that can’t wait to tell you the advanced level reading colour band that their child is on, when your child still can’t spell her name.

We’ve encountered this with Junior. There have been plenty of areas throughout his first five years where, if those areas were compared in isolation against other kids, he’d have been seen to be behind. He didn’t walk until 18 months; in fact, he didn’t even really crawl until he was 12 months. He couldn’t be bothered – people brought him things which meant he didn’t have to move. I can appreciate that level of economy and efficiency. There was a long period of time where, even though he was potty trained, he still wet himself, mostly due to him being very much involved in an activity and not being mature enough to know to break away from that and go to the loo. This took a long period of time to overcome. At five, he can neither ride a bike, nor swim. Many times we’ve been at the park practicing on our stabilisered steed and a kid perhaps half his age has zoomed passed, training wheel-free, usually helmet-less (don’t get me started), whilst we, once again, get into an argument about him not trying hard enough to pedal. There are kids in his class whose writing we see on the classroom walls that could be the hand of a 10 year old. Perfectly formed, perfectly sized, perfectly aligned. Junior still can’t get his ‘b’s and ‘d’s the right way round, and tends to end a sentence at least 5 cm lower down the page than where he started.

Solely taking this things, and comparing Junior to his peers, he would seem to be developmentally at the back of the queue. Especially when parenting is jam-packed full of people who are never more happy than when comparing. But there’s two things to remember:

1. The things your kid doesn’t do very well is only half the story. There’re myriad things he does that would put him at the top or thereabouts when comparing him to other kids. Which you shouldn’t do because…
2. Comparing kids is a terrible, and terribly inaccurate, imprecise, thing to do.

Don’t compare your kids. The window where kids learn their basic life skills – let’s say from birth to five – is such a small window in their whole life that to worry that your child is seemingly six months behind some other child is just nonsense in the grand scheme of things. Your child can’t walk at 18 months? Don’t worry, she will. Give it another few months. If you’re worried, go see a doctor. Otherwise, continue to guide her, and she’ll pick up. Sweat ye not, insecure parent. Your child can’t write his own name properly in year one, whilst his peers can? Relax, it’ll come. Practice with him, and he’ll get it. If you’re worried, speak to his teacher. If they’re concerned, they’ll help you out. If they’re not, you’re free to go.

There are so many things when raising a child that can be causes for concern, stress, and worry. Anything in the first five years or so that results from your child comparing badly against the development of one of his peers is not one of those things to get concerned about. Unless a health visitor or doctor or teacher is sitting you down and having the “We need to talk about Junior” speech then relax, you and your little one are fine, and it’ll all come together in the end.